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THE VENUS OF MILO.
THE VENUS OF MILO
AN ARCHEOLOGICAL STUDY OF
THE GODDESS OF WOMANHOOD
BY
PAUL CARUS
ILLUSTRATED
ai6oii7i' \pv<TO<TTe<))avoi' KaX'rfp ' \(f>po8iTr]y
aaofiai — Homeric Hymn.
CHICAGO LONDON
THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPANY
1916
COPYRIGHT BY
THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPAN"*
1916
CONTENTS.
PAGE
List of Illustrations v
The Discovery of a Rare Art Treasure 1
Dumont d'Urville's Report 5
Viscount Marcellus on his "Souvenirs" 11
^Debay's Drawing 15
/^ A Description of the Statue 22
./^ Restorations 27
Recent Theories 42
^•^hat the Facts Reveal 51
(^^e Meaning of "Aphrodite" 62
The Cult of Aphrodite 68
The Goddess of War 11
The Descent into Hades 83
The Magna Dea of the Nations 96
The Origin of Woman 121
/^Aphrodite in Art 145
Classical Hymns 171
Index 179
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
The Venus of Milo (Frontispiece).
The Field of Yorgos Bottonis 2
The Site of Melos from the Port 6
Fragments Found at Melos 12
Debay's Drawing of Venus 16
Head of the Venus of Milo 18
The Head of Tralles 19
The Venus of Milo 23
A Mutilated Statue of Eros 28
Venus with Shield and Pencil 29
Venus with Mirror 30
Venus as Victory 31
Drawing by Hasse and Henke ^^
Restoration by Furtwaengler S3
Saloman's Latest Restoration 34
Restoration by Saloman 35
Venus Sending out the Dove 36
The Mother of the Gods. Painting by Francisca P. Del Mar 38
Venus on the Swan 55
Head of Venus of Milo. Profile view 57
Head of Venus of Milo. Front view 59
Heavenly and Worldly Love. By Titian 66
Birth of Venus. Ludovisi relief 70
Detail from the Ludovisi Relief 72
Winter and Summer 73
Venus and Anchises 75
Venus Victrix 77
Eros in the Underworld 84
VI THE VENUS OF MILO.
PAGH
Carrying in Procession the Symbol of Istar 97
Isis and Horus 99
Egyptian Representation of the Dead Man and His Soul . 99
Astarte and the Dove 100
The Human-Headed Bird 101
Amulet of the Mycenaean Period 102
Isis and the Fish 102
Aphrodite with Rabbit 103
Relief from Boghaz-Koei 104
A Later Astarte 105
A Leaden Idol 105
Astarte in Cyprus 106
The Goddess of Navigation 107
Sargent's Astarte 108
The Immaculate Conception. By Murillo 109
Kwan-Yon and the Fish Ill
A Poem on Kwan-Yon 112
Benten, The Japanese Goddess of Divine Love 113
Kwan-Yon. By Li Lung-mien 114
Kwan Yon as the Buddha 115
T'ien Hou, Queen of Heaven 116
Freya 119
Adam and Eve Called to Account 133
The Creation of Woman 136
Detail from Ghiberti's Doors 137
The Creation of Woman. By Michelangelo 138
Adam and Eve in Paradise. By Gustave Dore 139
The First Family. By Schnorr von Carolsfeld 140
Primitive Man. By Gabriel Max 142
Babylonian Clay Figures 145
The Venus of Brassempouy 146
Lakshmi 147
Coins of Cilicia, Tarsus, Gaulos and Perga 148
Coins of Perga in Pamphylia 149
Three Artemis Medals 149
Coin of Antiochus Euergetes ISO
Istar on a Coin of Tarsus 150
Coins of Emesa, lasos Caria, Paphos and Lydia 151
The Diana of Ephesus in the Vatican 152
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Vll
FAGB
The Diana of Ephesus in Naples 153
Cyprian Aphrodite 154
Archaic Aphrodite with Dove 155
Archaic Venus in Pompeian Style 155
Aphrodite Sosandra by Kalamis 156
Aphrodite and Ares 157
Attic Sculpture of the Fifth Century B. C 158
Aphrodite of Alcamenes, Known as Venus Genetrix 159
Head of the Cnidian Venus. Profile 160
The Cnidian Venus of Praxiteles 161
The Venus of Praxiteles on a Cnidian Coin 162
Head of the Crouching Venus : 163
Venus Crouching in the Bath 164
Venus with the Unguent Jar 165
The Venus of Panderma. Front view 167
The Venus of Panderma. Rear view 168
The Venus Head in the Museum of Bardos 169
Head of the Cnidian Venus. Front view 172
Another View of the Cnidian Venus 175
THE DISCOVERY OF A RARE ART
TREASURE.
MELOS (Italian Milo), one of the smallest
Greek islands, would scarcely be known at
all except to specialists in geography or ancient his-
tory, had not a happy accident brought to light on
one of its hillsides that most beautiful piece of sculp-
ture which ever since its discovery has been known
as the Venus of Milo.
Melon means apple, and the island of Melos (the
''apple island") belongs to the Cyclades, being the
most southern and western member of that group.
It lies almost straight west from the southern tip of
the Peloponnesus and in a direction south to south-
west from Athens.
Melos was inhabited in ancient times by Dorians
who sympathized with Sparta against Athens, but
when the Athenians conquered it after a most stub-
born resistance they slaughtered the entire Dorian
male population and replaced them by Athenian
colonists. Since then the island remained abso-
2 THE VENUS OF MILO.
lutely faithful to Athens, in fact it was the last
possession which still belonged to Athens when the
Ionian confederacy broke up, and the friendly re-
lations between Melos and her metropolis continued
even after Greece had become a Roman province.
On this island of Melos, a peasant by the name of
THE FIELD OF YORGOS BOTTONIS.
Cross shows where the Venus was found. (From the Century
Magazine, 1881, Vol. I, p. 99.)
Yorgos Bottonis and his son Antonio, while clearing
away the stones near the ruins of an ancient
theater in the vicinity of Castro, the capital of the
island, came accidentally across a small underground
cave, carefully covered with a heavy slab and con-
cealed, which contained a fine marble statue in two
THE DISCOVERY OF A RARE ART TREASURE. 6
pieces, together with several other marble frag-
ments. This happened in February, 1820.
The Rev. Oiconomos, the village priest who
guided the finder in this matter, invited M. Louis
Brest, the French consul of Melos, to see the statue
and offered it to him (in March of the same year)
for 20,000 francs. M. Brest does not seem to have
been in a hurry to buy, but he claims to have written
to the French minister at Constantinople. One thing
is sure, no answer had come by April when His
French Majesty's good ship "Chevrette" happened
to cast anchor in the harbor at Melos and an ensign
on board. Monsieur Dumont d'Urville, went to see
the statue. The inability to sell it had brought the
price down, and the finder was willing to part with
it to the young Frenchman for only 1200 francs.
M. d'Urville was more energetic than M. Brest and
as soon as he reached Constantinople the French
Minister at once authorized a certain Count Mar-
cellus, a member of the French embassy, to go to
Melos and procure the statue.
Count Marcellus arrived on the French vessel
"Estafette" in May, but found that the statue in the
meantime had been sold to a certain Nikolai Morusi
for 4800 francs and had just been placed aboard a
little brig bound for Constantinople, the home of the
buyer. At this juncture the three Frenchmen, M.
Brest, M. d'Urville and Count Marcellus, decided
not to let their treasure so easily escape them, so
M. Brest protested before the Turkish authorities
4 THE VENUS OF MILO.
that the bargain had been concluded, declaring that
Bottonis had no right to sell his prize to any other
party. They even threatened to use force and, being
backed by the French mariners of the ''Estafette,"
said that under no conditions would they allow the
statue to leave the harbor.
While the three Frenchmen claimed that France
was entitled to have the statue for 1200 francs they
were willing to pay not only 4800 francs, the price
promised by Alorusi, but 6000 francs. The new
buyer had not yet paid and so the peasant was satis-
fied with the cash offered him, while the Turkish
authorities did not care either way. Thus it came
to pass that the valuable marble was transferred to
the French warship on May 25, 1820, (so at least
runs the original report without the fantastic story
of a battle) and after much cruising was carried
to Constantinople where it was placed on the
"Lionne," another French ship bound for France
and destined to bring home the French Minister,
Marquis de Riviere. The ''Lionne" reached France
in October, 1820, and the statue was delivered at
the Louvre in February, 1821.
DUMONT D'URVILLE'S REPORT.
THE most important passage of Dumont d'Ur-
ville's report^ about the discovery of the
statue reads in an EngHsh translation thus:
'The Chevrette set sail from Toulon on April 3
(1820) in the morning, and anchored on the six-
teenth in the roadstead of Milo ....
"On the 19th I went to look at some antique
pieces discovered at Milo a few days before our
arrival. Since they seem to me worthy of attention
I shall here record the result of my observation in
some detail ....
''About three weeks before our arrival at Milo
a Greek peasant digging in his field. . . .came across
some stones of considerable size. As these stones
. . . .had a certain value, this consideration encour-
aged him to dig still further, and so he succeeded in
^ Published under the title "Relation d'une expedition hydro-
graphique dans le Levant et la mer-Noire de la gabarre de Sa
Majeste la Chevrette, commandee par M. Gauttier, capitaine
de vaisseau, dans I'annee 1820," in Annales maritimes et colo-
niales de Bajot, 1821, and reprinted in Archives de I'art fran-
gais, publies sous la direction de M. A. Montaiglon, II series,
Vol. II, 1863, pp. 202ff.
THE VENUS OF MILO.
clearing out a sort of recess in which he found a
marble statue together with two hermae and some
other pieces, Hkewise of marble.
1 ')
"The statue was in two pieces joined in the
middle by two small iron tenons. Fearing he would
DUMONT d'uRVILLE's REPORT.
lose the fruit of his toil, the Greek had the upper
part of the two hermae carried away and deposited
in a stable. The rest were left in the cave. I ex-
amined all very carefully, and the various pieces
seemed to me in good taste, as far as my slight
acquaintance with the arts permitted me to judge
of them.
"I measured the two parts of the statue separately
and found it very nearly six feet in height ; it repre-
sented a nude woman whose left hand was raised
and held an apple, and the right supported a gar-
ment draped in easy folds and falling carelessly
from her loins to her feet. Both hands have been
mutilated and are actually detached from the body.
The hair is coiled in the back and held up by a
bandeau. The face is very beautiful and well pre-
served except that the tip of the nose is injured.
The only remaining foot is bare; the ears have been
pierced and may have contained pendants.
"All these attributes would seem to agree well
enough with the Venus of the judgment of Paris;
but in that case where would be Juno, Minerva and
the handsome shepherd? It is true that a foot clad
in a cothurnus and a third hand were found at the
same time. On the other hand the name of the
Island Melos has a very close connection with the
word iJLrjXov which means apple. Might not this
similarity of the words have indicated the statue
by its principal attribute?
"The two hermae were with it in the cave. Be-
8 THE VENUS OF MILO.
yoiid this fact there is nothing remarkable about
them. Their height is about three feet and a half.
One is surmounted by the head of a woman or child
and the other by the face of an old man with a long
beard.
''The entrance to the cave was surmounted by a
piece of marble four feet and a half long and about
six or eight inches wide. It bore an inscription of
which only the first half has been respected by
Time. The rest is entirely effaced. This loss is in-
estimable ; .... at least we might have learned on
what occasion and bv whom the statues had been
dedicated.
"At any rate I have carefully copied the remain-
ing characters of this inscription and I can guaran-
tee them all except the first, of which I am not sure.
The space which I indicate for the defaced part has
been measured in proportion to the letters which are
still legible :
:AKXEO:iATIOYYIIOrY \:i
TANTEESEAPANKAITO
EPMAIHPAKAEI
''The pedestal of one of the hermae also bore
an inscription but its characters had been so muti-
lated that it was impossible for me to decipher them.
"At the time of our passage to Constantinople
the ambassador asked me about this statue and I
told him what I thought about it, and sent to M. de
DUMONT d'URVILLE's REPORT.
Marcellus, secretary of the embassy, a copy of the
inscription just given. Upon my return M. de Ri-
viere informed me that he had acquired the statue
for the museum and that it had been put on board
one of the vessels at the landing. However, on our
second trip to Milo in the month of September I
regretted to learn that the affair was not yet ended.
It seems that the peasant, tired of waiting, had de-
cided to sell this statue for the sum of 750 piasters
to a neighboring priest who wished to make a pres-
ent to the dragoman of the Captain Pacha, and M.
de Marcellus came just at the moment when it was
being shipped to Constantinople. In despair at see-
ing this fine piece of antiquity about to escape him
he made every effort to recover it, and thanks to the
mediation of the primates of the island the priest
finally consented, but not without reluctance, to
abandon his purchase and give up the statue. . . .
"On April 25 in the morning we doubled the
promontory indicated . . . . "
I understand from M. Dumont d'Urville's report
that the statue was in "two parts" each about three
feet high, that both hands were mutilated and de-
tached from the body, "and that he had reason to
believe that the "left hand was raised and held an
apple and the right supported a garment." I say
"he had reason to believe" it, but he positively
speaks as if he had seen it although this cannot be
the case, for he contradicts this fact by the unequiv-
ocal statement that the hands "are actually detached
10 THE VENUS OF MILO.
from the body." He says, "it represented a nude
woman, etc." and the word ''represented" need not
mean that it was complete with all the limbs intact
and in their proper places.
Obviously M. d'Urville here describes the statue
restored with the fragments which were found in
the cave, were bought of the finder, the peasant
Bottonis, and are now preserved in a glass case in
the Louvre at Paris. One of these fragments is a
hand holding an apple, and there is also a portion
of an arm.
This interpretation is important in so far as dis-
cussions have arisen in later years as to the original
position of the hands when attempts to restore the
statue were made, and then the claim was made that
the statue had been found complete, that it had been
broken by the French sailors in its transportation
and that the French authorities had been careless in
handling the whole affair.
VISCOUNT MARCELLUS ON HIS "SOU-
VENIRS.
))
IT is important to know the facts with regard to
the debris found together with the so-caUed
Venus of Milo, as stated by a second eye witness,
the Viscount MarceHus. He wrote his reminis-
cences on the Venus of Milo in a book entitled
Souvenirs, and the second edition of this was re-
viewed by Lenormant. In answer to some objec-
tions of the latter the Viscount published "a last
word on the Venus of Milo."^
In this he enumerates as follows the objects
brought away from the cave where the Venus had
been found :
"No. 1. The nude upper part of the statue.
"No. 2. The lower draped portion.
"Yorgos, their original owner. . . .gave me at the
same time three small accessories of the statue
found in a field near by ... . These were :
"No. 3. The top of the hair commonly called the
chignon, etc.
^ "Un dernier mot sur la Venus de Milo," in the Revue Con-
temporaine, 1839, XIII, pp. 289ff.
12
THE VENUS OF MILO.
"No. 4. A shapeless and mutilated fore-arm.
''No. 5. Part of a hand holding an apple.
"The last two objects seemed to me to be of the
same kind of marble and of a grain near enough
like that of the statue, but I could not tell whether
they could reasonably be assumed to belong to a
Venus whose attitude I no longer remembered ....
FRAGMENTS FOUND AT MELOS.*
Nos. 4 and 5 of Viscount Marcellus's list.
"The primates at the same time sent me the three
hermae (Nos. 6, 7 and 8) which were still at Castro,
and a left foot in marble (No. 9) which had been
found in the neighborhood of the field of Yorgos
* These fragments are preserved in a glass case at the win-
dow in the same room of the Louvre where the Venus of Milo
stands.
VISCOUNT MARCELLUS OX HIS ''SOUVENIRS." 13
lower down toward the valley where the burial caves
are.
"They wished also to give me the inscription
found in the same locality which I had already
seen in their town. It is the one which commences
with the Greek words : ArXE02 ATIOY
''I here repeat that with this exception I took
away from ^lilo everything which had been taken
from the ground with the Venus or near by, and I
have no remembrance of having seen there, much
less of having received or acquired myself, any other
Greek inscription which made mention of a sculptor
with a mutilated name, etc. Of course I would be
eager enough with anything that might be able to
throw light on the discovery, and since in my Soii-
z'cnirs de V Orient (I, p. 249) I cite an epigraph of
almost no significance I would not wittingly or
negligently have omitted any Greek letters near the
excavation or relating to its details. Neither should
it be forgotten that in fact I indicate only 'three
hermae, some pedestals and other bits of marble
debris' (I, p. 237) as the result of Yorgos's suc-
cessive excavations; and further down (p. 48)
these same hermae and other antique fragments
without ever speaking of any inscription."
The inscription more completely mentioned by
Dumont d'Urville has also been published by Clarac
with only a few insignificant variations. He adds the
missing B at the beginning, reads I in place of E,
and has two 2's. It is a votive inscription which has
14 THE VENUS OF MILO.
no connection with our Venus. Being of little value,
the authorities of the Louvre did not take good care
of it and it is now lost. The probable meaning of
the inscription is ''Bakchios, (son of) Atios the
subgymnasiarch (has donated) the arcade and the
.... [he has erected according to a vow] to Hermes,
Heracles,
• • •
These reports of two eye-witnesses are important
not so much for what they contain as for what they
do not contain. Neither ^I. Dumont d'Urville nor
Viscount Marcellus mentions the name of the artist
of the statue. x\n inscription is copied by both in
which Bacchus, Hermes and Heracles are men-
tioned, but no reference is made to the name of
Agesander or Alexander of Antioch as having been
seen on a fragment of the pedestal — an artist who
makes his appearance in a mysterious way and
whose acquaintance we shall make in the next chap-
ter. ^Moreover, since other pieces of debris were
found either in the cave or in a neighboring field,
there is no reason whatever that any one of them,
let alone the left hand holding an apple, should have
been attached to our statue.
We shall have occasion to refer to these points
again.
DEBAY'S DRAWING.
THE famous French painter David happened
to be in exile at the time of the discovery
of the Venus of ]\lilo, and, taking an especial inter-
est in this wonderful piece of ancient art, he induced
one of his disciples, a certain Debay, to have his
son Auguste Debay, a young art student, make a
drawing of the statue as soon as it was put up in
the Louvre. This drawing was afterwards pub-
lished bv M. de Clarac in his "Notice" and we here
republish it on account of the importance it has
gained as a document in the history of the statue.
Debay's drawing shows a plinth bearing an in-
scription and also exhibiting a square hole in the
ground near the left foot of the statue. The angle
of vision is indicated by the line ",t',r" which shows
the height from which the statue was viewed by
]\I. Debay. The point a corresponds to the place of
the eye projected horizontally at a distance in front
which cannot have been more than one and one-half
times the height of the statue. Geometrically this
place is determined by the intersection of two lines
16
THE VEXUS OF MILO.
crn=5k
DEBAY'S DRAWING OF VENUS.
debay's drawing. 17
from a and b constructed in a horizontal plane at
right angles to the vertical axis of the statue.
The inscription on the pedestal of M. Debay's
drawing reads :
. . . ^ANAPOS HNIAOY
. . . lOXEYSAnOMAIAXAPOY
EnOIH2EN
ii
. .andros son of Menides of [Ant] lochia on
the Maiandros."
Since of the last missing letter before the A the
lowest stroke of a Greek H or of an 2 is discernible
in the drawing, the name must have read "Alexan-
dros'' or ''Agesandros." This man cannot have lived
before the third century B. C. because his native city
Antioch on the ^laeander was founded by An-
tiochus I, the second of the Diadochs (280-261
B. C. ) According to Professor Kirchhoff's view
the character of the letters belongs to the first cen-
tury and may in his opinion be dated' back at most
to the middle of the second century B. C.
We have no information whatever why the plinth
was joined to the statue. All we know about it is
that it appears on the Debay drawing and is lost
now, but it continues to be a mystery to archeol-
ogists.
Some consider it as genuine and denounce the
authorities of the Louvre for their extraordinary
carelessness in having allowed so important a docu-
ment to be lost, and others see no reason whv this
18
THE VENUS OF MILO.
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HEAD OF THE VENUS OF MILO.
DEBAY S DRAWING.
19
THE HEAD OF TRALLES.
20 THE VENUS OF MILO.
piece of marble which possessed no significance
whatever should be so highly treasured.
If the piece of the pedestal with the inscription
belonged to the statue, for which assumption, as we
have seen, there is no reason whatever, the statue
would be of a comparatively late date, but we really
do not know what the plinth bearing the name
''. . . .andros" has to do with the statue.
Archeologists have discovered other heads show-
ing a remarkable similarity in their features to the
Venus of Alilo. Among them is a head discovered
in Tralles, Asia ]\Iinor, which shows almost the
same face as the Venus of Milo. So close is the
resemblance that both seem to have been made
after the same model. It may be that one has been
copied from the other or both chiseled from a- com-
mon prototype. We here reproduce the heads of
both, after half-tone pictures published by Salo-
man.^
Overbeck believes that the Venus of Alilo is not
an original. He says : ''It seems permissible to doubt
the originality of this composition, and to refer it
back to an older original which we can no longer
determine, as the common prototype of the statue
of Milo and of other similar statues. For this rea-
son there would be no objection to assigning the
origin of our statue to the period of imitation. Al-
though I deem the dependence of the statue upon
1 Geskel Salonian, Die Restauration der J'eiius von Milo, den
Mancn de Claracs gezvidmet. Stockholm, 1895. Plate IV.
DEBAY^S DRAWING. 21
an older original assured, I am disinclined to deny
a certain degree of originality, but in those very
features which I deem to be original are the very
marks of a late revision."
Conze" compares our Venus of Milo with the
style of the Pergamene sculptures, and in his essay
on the results of the excavation at Pergamum, page
71, he calls attention to the fact that the warm tone
of the skin and the sketchy method of the treatment
of the hair seem characteristic of a later period,
pointing out the similarity of a piece of Pergamene
sculpture with the head of the Venus of ^Nlilo.
Shall we assume that this head of Tralles is older
than the Venus of Milo and that we must look upon
the art of Pergamum as the school in which our
artist, Agesander or Alexander or whoever he may
have been, drew his inspiration ? We have no posi-
tive proof on either side but internal evidence speaks
in favor of regarding the Venus of Alilo as original,
and we cannot place any confidence in the genuine-
ness of the plinth in the Debay drawing, so may
regard the statue as the work of a classical, though
unknown, Athenian artist, or at least one who
worked for Athens and her temples.
- Conze, Die Ergebnisse dcr Ausgrahiingen zii Pergainon.
A DESCRIPTION OF THE STATUE.
WE have before us in the statue of the Venus
of ^lilo one of the greatest masterpieces
of ancient Hellas, and it is of secondary importance
whether or not it was the artist's intention to rep-
resent the goddess of love and beauty. Surely
this work of art represents womanhood at its best
— a noble feminine figure in full maturity, not a
maiden but fully developed, a wife or mother; and
yet not as a mother with a child, nor as a wife with
her husband, but simply as a woman.
There is nothing frivolous about her, no coquetry,
nothing amorous. Her eyes betray not the slightest
touch of a sensual emotion, not that sentimental
moistness, t6 lypov as the Greeks called it, and
thereby the artist succeeded in transfiguring naked
beauty by a self-possessed chastity unrivaled in the
art of statuaiy.
The consensus of art admirers, which is almost,
though not quite, universal, sees in this marble the
great mother-goddess, das ezvig Weiblichc, idealized
femininity, the goddess of beauty and love, whom
the Greeks called Aphrodite and the Romans Venus.
THE VENUS OF MILO.
24 THE VENUS OF MILO.
The goddess (if we may so call her) stands be-
fore us erect in queenly dignity. Her dress is fall-
ing down leaving the upper body entirely uncovered,
and yet in spite of the nudity of the figure we are
struck with its unparalleled purity and nobility of
expression.
The statue has suffered many injuries. Both
arms have been broken off and are now lost, and so
is the left foot. The tip of the nose has been restored,
and there are scratches and cudgel marks all over
the body which could not be mended without de-
stroying the original work in the general treatment
of the skin. The ears are pierced, so there must
originally have been earrings which robbers had
torn away before the statue was secreted in the
cave.
A line in the hair of the statue shows holes which
prove plainly that on top of the head there must
have been a coronet like that commonly worn by
Greek goddesses and called by the Greeks o-(/)ei'8on;,
''sling," because with the strings attached it resem-
bles a sling. It was worn especially by the Queen
of Heaven, Hera (the Juno of the Roman pan-
theon).
Since the arms have been broken oft* and lost,
the artist's conception with regard to the posture
can only be surmised. The face is calm and without
passion. It wears a commanding expression, appar-
ently with a suggestion of surprise, even of self-
defence.
A DESCRIPTION OF THE STATUE. 25
Judging from the muscles of the left shoulder the
left arm must have been raised. Sometimes it has
been claimed that the broken hand with the apple,
which with other debris was found in the neighbor-
hood, belonged to the statue : and that the apple
being the emblem of A^enus and at the same time
that of the island of ]\Iilo as well, the statue repre-
sented the patron goddess of the island, but this is
very doubtful. ' Archeologists are not in full accord
upon this point for the mere reason that the frag-
ment of the hand with the apple is of rough work-
manship and is commonly judged as not worthy of
the statue ; at best it might 1)e regarded as the work
of an ancient restoration. All critics, however, are
pretty well agreed that the right hand must have
grasped for the falling garment, preliminarily held
up by the raised knee.
The Venus of ]\Iilo is at present the pride of the
Louvre at Paris, and the place where she stands on
account of her ]M-esence alone may be likened to an
ancient pagan shrine, comparable to the room in the
Dresden gallery where the Sistine ^Madonna stands,
the latter being a Christian counterpart of the for-
mer.
Our Blessed Lady of ]\Iilo, as we may call this
beautiful representative of Greek paganism in imi-
tation of Veit Valentin's name Die hoJic Fran von
Milo, has always a group of admiring visitors sit-
ting quietly Ijefore her, and there is often a hush
in the room which recalls the sanctitv of relieious
26 THE VEX US OF MILO.
chapels attended by quiet worshipers. There is a
sacred atmosphere surrounding the statue and even
the hurried globe-trotter feels that he has come into
the presence of some divinity that exerts her in-
fluence upon the world not by might, but by beauty,
grace and loveliness.
RESTORATIONS.
MAXY attempts have been made to restore the
statue of the A^enus of ^lilo, and we here
reproduce a number of them, but none of them
have proved successful. It ahiiost seems, as the
German poet Heinrich Heine somewhere says, that
the \^enus of Milo in her helpless condition with
her arms broken off a])peals more to our sympath}-
than in her original condition of glory when she
received the homage of faithful worshij^ers. and it is
true the very mutilated form is extremely attractive
in its present dilapidated state. Broken by fanatics
of a hostile faith, she represents in dignity and
beauty the natural charm of Greek religion at its
best. The hordes of bigoted monks vented their
hatred with especial wrath against the goddess of
love and also against her son, Eros, as may be seen
from a figure of this god represented in his dain-
tiest vouthfulness. Here too the marks of the clubs
of a furious mob are visible, betraying the same
spirit as in the treatment of the Venus of ^lilo. It
is the fanaticism of ascetic frenzv in the bitterness
A MUTILATED STATUE OF EROS.
RESTORATIONS.
29
of its wrath against nature in general and love in
particular that showed itself in these iconoclastic
demonstrations.
VENUS WITH SHIELD AND PENCIL.
Wt regret now the destruction of the Greek idols
as a barbaric warfare waged upon art. We have
begun to sympathize with the vanquished gods, and
30
THE VENUS OF MILO.
archeologists are trying to restore what early Chris-
tianity ruthlessly destroyed or mutilated.
Those restorers of the Venus of Milo who reject
VENUS WITH :\nRROR.
the genuineness of the right hand holding an apple
enjoy the greatest liberty in their work of recon-
struction, and we find some of them representing
RESTORATIONS.
31
our Venus as holding a shield on her knee and
writing upon it. Others assume that her right hand
holds a mirror, while still others who claim that
VENUS AS VICTORY.
Probably by T. Bell.
there is no necessity of interpreting the statue to be
a Venus, believe her to be a Victory or Nike, and
put wreaths in her hands.
DRAWING BY HASSE AND HENKE.
RESTORATIONS.
33
Hasse and Henke have treated the problem of
restoration from the standpoint of anatomy, and
plausibly claim that the left hand should be raised
higher than other restorers have proposed.
RESTORATION BY FURTWAEXGLER.
The restoration of Furtwangler, according to
which the goddess rests her left arm on a column
and holds an apple in her hand, has for a long time
SALOMAN'S LATEST RESTORATION.
RESTORATIONS.
35
been considered the most probable, and yet even this
can scarcely be regarded as satisfactory.
Mr. Geskel Saloman, a Swedish archeologist. also
RESTORATION BY SALOMAN.
places a column at her left side and uses it for her
elbow to rest on. In consideration of some an-
cient descriptions of a dramatic ceremony performed
36
THE VENUS OF MILO.
] J
00
CM
\ j
>
■'"^.
\^
J'v
RESTORATIONS. 37
at Corinth he places a dove on her right hand. The
idea is that having received the apple as the prize
of beauty she sends out the dove to her worshipers
to announce her triumph and inform them that they
may celebrate the victory.
Veit \^alentin attempts to construct his restora-
tion out of the data furnished by the marble itself
and seems to come nearest to the truth. He assumes
that the goddess, when in the act of undressing for a
bath, finds herself surprised by an intruder. There is
no fear or alarm in her attitude, but she raises her
hand in protest with a self-poised assurance and
grasps with her right hand the falling garment
which she attempts to support by a hurried motion
of her left knee, ^^'e regret that we have not seen
either a picture or a statue of this restoration, but
we are deeply impressed that this idea is most prob-
ably correct.
The latest restoration comes from Francisca Pa-
loma Del ]\Iar (Frank Paloma ) who places a child
on the left arm of the goddess, and this conception
is defended in a special pamphlet by Alexander Del
.Mar.^
i\Ir. Del ]\Iar brings out the idea that the rever-
ence in which the great mother goddess was held '
among the pagans was not substantially different
in piety from Christian ^Madonna worship, and this
view is brought out in the painting by the artist
1 The Venus di Milo, Its History and Its Art. New York,
Cambridge Encyclopedia Co., 1900.
38
THE VEXUS OF MILO.
THE MOTHER OF THE GODS.
From a painting by Francisca P. Del !Mar.
RESTORATIONS. 39
f
Frank Paloma here reproduced. Mr. Del ^lar thinks
that the pagan goddess served the inhabitants of
Melos as a Christian Virgin. He says :
''What more natural than for the pious islanders
of Melos, terrified by the harsh edicts of Theodosius,
to simply burn the pedestal and inscription belong-
ing to their pagan goddess, and continue to worship
under another name the same embodiment of that
holy sentiment of love and maternity which they
had hitherto been accustomed to adore."
Mr. Del ^lar relies on the testimony of Count
Marcellus who finally concluded the bargain in the
name of the French government and quotes him as
saying in his Souvenirs de rOricnt, I, 255 : ''It can
be demonstrated that the statue represented the
Panagia or Holy Virgin of the little Greek chapel
whose ruins I saw at Milo."
It seems to us that the statue cannot have car-
ried a child on her left arm because the marble
would show more trace of pressure where the
mother must have touched the babe, even when we
make allowance for a polishing in the restored por-
tions; and we would suggest further that the arm
carrying the child would be held farther down.
When a mother carries a child, her upper and lower
arms are naturally at right angles and the position
of having them at a very acute angle at the elbow
appears quite artificial.
The haloes placed upon the heads of mother and
child and the apple of empire in the infant's hand
40 THE VENUS OF MILO.
are attributes belonging to the Christian era and so
constitute other objections to Mr. Del ]\Iar's resto-
ration. The halo is of late pagan origin, and in the
form of rays it was first used to characterize gods
of light, as for instance Helios and Selene. The
round form of the nimbus is later still and seems to
have arisen with the development of the art of
painting. The apple of empire was not used in the
days of antiquity but appears frequently in Con-
stantinople and in early Christian symbolism.
W^ithout entering into details we leave it to the
taste of the reader whether he would select any of
these restorations as a possible solution of the prob-
lem ; we prefer to admire the statue as it appears
now; for after all the broken figure still remains
dearer to us in its wonderful and appealing beauty
than any of the restorations. We ourselves believe
that modern man will come to the conclusion that in
this image in its present shape we have a noble mar-
tyr of ancient paganism. Even the original statue
itself in all its perfection, if it could be restored to
us as it came fresh from the artist's workshop,
could not replace the torso as we know it now.
This is the reason why we do not take a great
interest in the various restorations of the Venus
of Milo, and therefore are not inclined to under-
take a close study of them or to enter into an elab-
orate recapitulation of these otherwise quite laud-
able attemi)ts. We can only sa)- tliat none of the
restorations here discussed seems to solve the prob-
RESTORATIONS. 41
lem. Nevertheless we do not believe the problem
to be beyond the possibility of solution, and we will
state briefly what in our opinion the facts suggest.
We believe that among all the propositions made
by restorers the simplest one, that of Veit Valentin,
alone deserves our interest.
If we consider the dominating motive of the
statue we must grant that it neither belongs to the
very earliest times in which Venus was fully dressed,
nor to the latest in which nudity, intensified in its
suggestiveness by prudery, had nearly become the
most characteristic feature of the deity of love.
It takes its place in the midst of Greek art develop-
ment when the first attempt was made to show the
human form, and this is done in such a way as not
to go to the extreme of a complete denudation but
only suggests it and, as it were, with a protest on
the part of the goddess. For the attitude of the
statue plainly indicates that the goddess endeavors to
retard the falling garment so as to give the right
arm a moment's time to grasp it and to hold it up.
It is more than merely probable that the left arm
was raised toward an unexpected intruder in warn-
ing not to approach. There is no fear in the ex-
pression of the face, no fright, no anticipation of
danger. The whole attitude makes us suspect that
the missing left hand was raised with a forbidding
gesture, expressing the command, Ne prorsum! Ne
phis ultra! Noli me tang ere!
RECENT THEORIES.
THE statue discovered on the island of Milo
acquired a fame beyond the greatest expec-
tations, and the intense interest taken in it fre-
quently gave rise to bitter discussions about its his-
tory and the causes of its mutilation. Thus it hap-
pened that the authorities of the Louvre, or even
the French government itself, were held responsible
for the sad state of desolation in which it now
appears.
Accusations were made that this venerable piece
of classic art had been treated with inexcusable
neglect, that important inscriptions belonging to it
had been lost, and the claim was even made that
the statue was whole at the time it was found. The
dissatisfied parties interpreted M. Dumont d'Ur-
ville's report in the sense that he had seen the
statue whole, quoting from his description : "It
represented a nude woman whose left hand was
raised and held an apple and the right supported
a garment draped in easy folds and falling care-
lessly from her loins to her feet." This in their
RECENT THEORIES. 43
opinion meant that M. d'Urville had seen the statue
complete in this posture when he bought it. The sen-
tence which runs, ''Both hands have been mutilated
and are actually detached from the body," according
to this contention is to be interpreted that this must
have happened before the French party delivered the
statue to the Louvre, probably at the time when the
French marines forced its transfer from the Turk-
ish brig to the French warship "Estafette."
The points raised in this discussion overlook
some significant facts which if duly considered dis-
pose of the claim that the statue was whole and
unmutilated when discovered and sold to M. Du-
mont d'Urville. Viscount Marcellus enumerates
the objects discovered in the cave and mentions
fragments of the statue found in the field nearby.
Could he, an eye witness, have believed that it was
whole and unmutilated when he assumes that a
number of separate fragments belonged to it?
It is not impossible that the quarrel between the
French marines and the Turks was a regular fight;
that they came to blows, but scarcely to shots. If
there had been any fatalities we would have heard
of it in the first report of the acquisition of the
statue; but no serious wounds in the struggle are
mentioned even in the later report, although in it
we learn of a fight on the beach about the possession
of the statue, and this later became humorously ex-
aggerated into a battle involving drawn cutlases and
a bleeding ear.
44 THE VENUS OF MILO.
The discussion was renewed in 1912 by M. Al-
card who laid much emphasis upon the testimony
of Lieutenant ]\Iatterer, a comrade of j\I. Dumont
d'Urville. He is claimed to have felt such disgust
about the endless disputes on the original form of
che Venus of Milo that he wished to put an end to
them. He says : "When I saw the statue in the hut
of Yorgos Bottonis on whose field it was found,
the left arm was attached to the bust and held an
apple over her head."
This positive statement stands in plain contra-
diction to the older records and it seems that the
imagination of the valiant naval officer played his
memory a trick after the lapse of nearly half a
century. Perhaps it is impossible to evolve the
exact truth definitely, but it seems to me that we
must not estimate these later testimonies too highly,
for it would be more difficult then to explain the
actual condition of the statue and its agreement with
the older descriptions, than now to account for these
later depositions of a few excitable and imaginative
men who feel that they have something of great im-
portance to declare. Moreover, the most important
witness, Lieutenant flatterer, is characterized in
these accounts as ''an officer of great merit but no
literary cultivation," which does not seem to make
his opinion especially reliable.
The Sunday Record-Herald of Chicago (Nov. 24,
1912) contains a summary of this later phase of the
discussion as to the condition of the Venus of Milo
RECENT THEORIES. 45
from which we quote a few passages that in spite
of the sensational character of the account may be
of interest. The American reporter, relying on his
French sources, says :
"The great Thiers began his start in journalism
by a study of this Venus and the riddle of her arms.
So when he became president of the French republic
he ordered the ambassador to Greece, Jules Ferry,
to make a trip to Melos and pick up local tradition.
Ferry did better. He found the son and nephew
still alive, Antonio and Yorgos Jr. 'They have
grown to be beautiful old men — white-bearded,
ruddy, robust and bright-eyed,' reported Ferry.
'Examined separately before the French vice-consul
at Castro they declared steadily, with minute details
and explanatory gestures and poses, that Venus,
when they found her, was standing upright on her
pedestal, her right arm sustaining her draperies
and her left arm raised and extended, its hand hold-
ing an apple.' "
I assume that the old Greek peasants spoke Greek,
and so M. Ferry probably understood their meaning
mainly from their "explanatory gestures and poses"
which might as well have expressed their idea of the
original attitude of the statue as the way in which
they actually saw it.
"The popular story of the countryside also," con-
tinued Ferry's report, "is a tale of battle. At fifty
years' distance the recollection remains and tradition
is not yet born. The discovery of the Venus Vic-
46 THE VENUS OF MILO.
trix, the dispute of which she was the object, the
fight on the beach, the victor}^ of the French and
her final abduction violently impressed the islanders
— and the impression remains."
"The battle of the beach" is described in sensa-
tional terms. The French war-schooner "Estafette"
had reached ^lelos in May 1820, when her com-
mander Robert saw the Greek brig "Galaxidion"
(flying the Turkish flag) anchored nearby, and to
the consternation of himself and Marcellus, the
secretary of the French embassy at Constantinople,
there appeared on shore at the foot of the hill a
crowd of Greek and Turkish sailors laboriously
transporting the upper half of the statue toward
that same Turkish brig. The account continues :
"The Greeks and Turks advanced slowly, chan-
ging shifts and reposing. ^larcellus and Robert
looked in each other's eyes. 'There's just time,'
said Robert. They armed a long-boat full of ma-
rines, Alarcellus and Robert with them in com-
mand, and reached the shore just as men from a
Turkish long-boat came running to protect their
brethren. From the hill of Castro M. Brest, the
French vice-consul, was making good time to the
melee. Cutlasses and clubs opened the dance.
"The Turks dropped the marble idol. Around
Venus it was slash and parry, kick, bite, jab, gouge
and roll. A cutlass takes off a Turkish ear. Enough
carnage ! When you fly the Turkish flag you don't
soak the sands with your life-blood for a graven
RECENT THEORIES. 47
image made against the law of the Prophet. The
Turks pull for the brig. The French have copped
the peerless one, Venus Victrix, impassive, stares
past them at the white-capped sea, where she was
born. Is there a faint smile of satisfaction on the
lovely lips?
''The stretcher had been injured. All were ex-
cited. Hurry, the Turks may return in force ! That
stretcher is no good. Put rollers under the flat of
the block. Pull on the ropes ! Attentionl The bust
is slipping! Malheur, she's on her back? Tant pis\
Now, my children, yet another effort! Good old
long-boat! Embark! It was hot work, but she's
ours. Best say as little as possible about it. Mon-
sieur le Vice-Consul, you will please to arrange the
settlement of this annoying episode diplomatically!
''Negotiations lasted two days. Finally the Turk-
ish brig ceded to the French the lower part of the
statue; but when the 'Estafette' sailed for Piraeus.
Venus bore irreparable wounds.
"So they say. Such is said to be the secret — or
part of it. Among fragments of marble gathered
up after the battle of the beach were debris of her
arms — in particular of the beautiful left arm which
MM. d'Urville and Matterer had seen entire on her
shoulder, lifting the triumphal apple!"
The report of M. Ferry makes the trip from
Paris to Melos worth while and may have pleased
the learned president of the republic, M. Thiers.
The American reporter's account throws light on
48 THE VENUS OF MILO.
the theory suggested by the results of M. Ferry's
trip :
"Venus Victrix was received in Paris by the
Count de Clarac, curator of the Louvre, then Royal
Museum. Did he know of the fight? Perhaps.
Was it to forestall a possible hint that a French
war-ship could attack and plunder the war-ship of
a friendly power in profound peace, or to prevent
a dream of the impossible possibility that the mar-
velous statue could have been mutilated in any
French hands, by accident or otherwise, that he
assumes Venus to have been dug up [in its present
condition] ?"
The official report of Count de Clarac when the
statue was received at the Louvre runs as follows :
*'Bust and front have scarcely suffered from the
ravages of time. They keep the velvety skin of a
master of the great Greek period, who, after pol-
ishing, once more skimmed the chisel over the per-
fect work. But here and there are slight lesions,
due, probably, to careless pickstrokes in digging
her up. The shoulders have been much damaged,
traces of cords indicate that she was dragged along
the shore toward the Turkish brig, and in that fatal
passage the shoulders and haunches were scraped
and worn, several finger breadths being taken off
the former.'*
The fertile imagination of the account changes
the Greek brig ''Galaxidion" into a Turkish man-
of-war so as to impress the reader that there is a
RECENT THEORIES. 49
diplomatic secret to be hidden which might involve
the French authorities into a war with Turkey.
The cause, being about the goddess of love, would
be quite romantic but a war is serious enough to
make the authorities wish to avoid it and prefer to
cast a shadow of mystery over the whole affair.
We shall see later that the mutilations of the
statue need not have originated from careless han-
dling on the part of the French marines when they
took possession of the statue.
Here is another passage which describes the na-
ture of the injuries of the Venus statue without,
however, being proof of the battle of the beach:
''The shoulder has been broken, not merely scraped
and worn, by dragging. And the author of another
report, M. Lange, chief restorer of the Royal Mu-
seum in 1820, specialist of vast experience and a
workman to boot, notes certain exfoliations or
scrapings of the left arm fragments 'running
straight up on to the shoulder of the statue, and
found also on the back of the hand fragment, which
show that these different parts formed one with
the shoulder; and these straight scratches could
only have been made, all following the same direc-
tion, when the left ann was entire !' "
This quotation is made to prove that the arm was
still connected with the statue before it was scraped
along the ground, but may not this scraping have
taken place before it was hidden in the cave?
The Louvre's acquisition of the Venus of Milo
50 THE VENUS OF MILO.
proved in some respects a misfortune to the Count
de Clarac. Charles Lenormant, the archeologist, in
a contribution to the Correspondant in 1854 merci-
lessly attacked the director of the Louvre and his
staff, saying (as reported in the Record-Herald) :
"I have always believed that from the beginning
to better accredit a production which is its own best
proofs, they designedly caused to disappear acces-
sories which might derange the idea that they had
just conquered a chef-d'oeuvre of the grand epoch
of Greek art. Thus, besides the arms, they sup-
pressed the debris of an inscription."
Can we entertain the suspicion that the authori-
ties of the Louvre purposely destroyed the inscrip-
tion assumed to have been found with the debris of
the Venus of Milo and that they suppressed facts or
the knowledge of facts which might bear testimony
against their cherished theories as to the proveni-
ence of their favorite piece of art? Scarcely! The
inscription, as we have seen, was doubtless lost be-
cause nobody cared for it, for there was no evidence
that it belonged to the statue.
WHAT THE FACTS REVEAL.
OF all the statues of classical antiquity the
Venus of Milo is the greatest favorite, not
only with the public at large but with art critics as
well, and it is strange that the statue has acquired
this popularity, for it is by no means perfect in
conception nor has it been made by any one of
the famous artists. The sculptor is either not known
at all or, if the pedestal bearing the name of Age-
sandros or Alexandros actually belonged to the
statue, he was a man unknown to fame, and it seems
difficult to point out the reasons which give to this
most badly wrecked piece of marble its |>eculiar
charm.
We cannot help thinking that the artist worked
after a living model and followed details pretty
faithfully. It has been noticed for instance that the
feet of the Venus are larger than those of the aver-
age woman of to-day and the head is unusually small.
In fact this close adherence to actual life may be
the main secret of the charm of the statue, for on
account of this reality there is a personal element in
52 THE VENUS OF MILO.
it, and we can almost read the character of the
woman who stood as a model. We see at once an
absence_of any and every hsrivinns tr?^it quite com-
mon to Venus figures of a later period, _and in the
face there is a remarkable unconsciousness of self.
We may assume that the artist belonged to the
famous school of Rhodes or to the group of those
artists who made Pergamum famous with their
work, but no statement can be made with certainty.
Upon archeological grounds we cannot place the
date of the statue earlier than about 400 B. C, nor
later than the first part of the second century B. C,
and this opinion is mainly based upon the excellent
workmanship, the peculiar warmth of the skin as
well as the classical simplicity of the statue as a
whole. It appears that this valuable piece of art
is worthy of a Phidias, a Praxiteles, a Lysippos, or
a Scopas.
Having searched art books in vain for an ex-
planation of the history of the Venus of Alilo and
its tragic fate, we will here briefly recapitulate what
the simple facts of the statue, its workmanship, its
sad and mutilated condition and also its place of
discovery, can teach us.
The statue shows a few scratches which indicate
that it may have been dragged along the ground,
but the marble bears innumerable indentations which
can scarcely be explained otherwise than as due to
blows with heavy sticks or clubs. The story of M.
Ferry recapitulated in the foregoing chapter does
\
WHAT THE FACTS REVEAL. 53
not suffice. Some mutilations may be due to a
rough handling in transportation, but the scratches
are few and the cudgel marks are many. Appar-
ently the statue has stood an attack of a mob of
infuriated enemies who hated the goddess and re-
garded her as a devil^:;^s the patron deity of the
worst of sins. She must have endured a terrible
persecution at the hands of implacable enemies, and
these enemies can only have been Christians.
It is obvious that the statue has been hidden, and
we need not doubt that it was concealed by pagan
worshipers who wanted to preserve the effigy of
the goddess. The marks of brutal treatment visible
all over the body of the statue indicate that the fair
goddess had been most furiously belabored as if in
corporeal chastisement with rods and any weapons
that happened to be at hand. The arms are broken
and we must assume that the statue was upset and
thrown from its pedestal. Probably the goddess
fell on her right shoulder which is crushed, while the
left arm exhibits a smooth fracture as if it had
been broken by the concussion of the fall. If the
arms are not the fragments enumerated by Count
Marcellus and now preserved in the Louvre, they
must have been lost : possibly they were smashed
to small fragments.
Can we assume that the provincial population of
a small island could have produced the greatest
piece of art of antiquity? Could a few farmers have
engaged a sculptor who must have been the equal of
54 THE VENUS OF MILO.
Phidias and Scopas? If the statue had represented
the tutelary goddess of the island, would not some
Greek author have alluded to its existence; would
not Pausanias have mentioned the fact? The idea
that the statue was of indigenous workmanship is
a mere assumption and by no means probable. But
whence can the statue have come, and how did it
find its way to this little island in the ^gean Sea?
This question is not unanswerable; we need only
consider the history of the island and its political
connections. n
The island of Milo was too small a place to have
a temple that could afford a statue of such extraor-
dinary value, and we must assume that it was car-
ried thither on a ship. Athens is the only place
that we can think of which might have been its
original home.
The early centuries of the Christian era were
troublesome times. Lawlessness prevailed and a
general decadence had set in, which was due to the
many civil wars in both Greece and Italy. The
establishment of the Roman empire checked the
progress of degeneration but only in external ap-
pearance. In reality a moral and social deteriora-
tion continued to take an ever stronger hold 'upon
the people. The old religion broke down and the
new faith was by no means so ideal in the beginning
as it is frequently represented by writers of eccle-
siastical history.
Our notions concerning the vicious character of
WHAT THE FACTS REVEAL.
55
ancient paganism are entirely wrong. Even the
worship of Aphrodite and of the Phenician Astarte
was by no means degraded by that gross sensuaHsm
of which the fathers of the church frequently accuse
VENUS ON THE SWAN.
A kylix from Capua.
it. Wherever we meet with original expressions of
the pagan faith we find deep reverence and childlike
piety. In many respects the worship of Istar in
Babylonia and Astarte in Phenicia, of Isis in Egypt,
56 THE VENUS OF MILO. ^
of Athene, Aphrodite and Hera in Greece, of the
Roman Juno, and Venus, the special protectress of
the imperial family, was noble in all main fea-
tures, and did not differ greatly from the cult of the
Virgin Mary during the Middle Ages. We shall
discuss this phase in a subsequent chapter and here
reproduce an ancient platter which is ascribed by
archeologists to the fourth century B. C, and shows
a noble and serene Venus who is fully draped and
flying on a swan.
f^ When Christianity spread over the Roman em-
pire, the city of Athens was the last stronghold of
paganism, but even there the mass of the population
had become Christian. There was a time in the de-
velopment of Christianity when it was hostile not
only to ancient pagan mythology but also to pagan
science and to pagan art. This was the age in which
almost all the statues of the Greek gods were either
destroyed, or maltreated and shattered so that not
one has come down to us unmutilated.
Prof. F. C. Con3^beare of University College, Ox-
ford, describes conditions of that age in his trans-
lation of the Apology and Acts of Apollonius and
Other Monuments of Christianity, as follows:
'The obvious way of scotching a foul demon
was to smash his idols; and we find that an enor-
mous number of martyrs earned their crown in this
manner, especially in the third century, when their
rapidly increasing numbers rendered them bolder
and more ready to make a display of their intol-
WHAT THE FACTS REVEAL.
57
t.
HEAD OF THE VENUS OF MILO.
Profile view.
58 THE VENUS OF MILO.
erance. Sometimes the good sense or the worldly
prudence of the Church intervened to set limits to
so favorite a way of courting martyrdom; and at
the Synod of Elvira, c. A. D. 305, a canon was
passed, declaring the practice to be one not met with
in the Gospel nor recorded of any of the Apostles,
and denying to those who in future resorted to it
the honors of martyrdom. But in spite of this, the
most popular of the saints were those who had re-
sorted to such violence and earned their death by
it; and as soon as Christianity fairly got the upper
hand in the fourth century, the wrecking of temples
and the smashing of the idols of the demons became
a most popular amusement with which to grace a
Christian festival. As we turn over the pages of
the martyrologies, we wonder that any ancient
statues at all escaped those senseless outbursts of
zealotry."
It must have been in one of these '^outbursts of
zealotry" that one of the temples of Aphrodite was
attacked and the statue of the goddess brutally as-
saulted. The mutilated statue presumably lay prone
upon the ground at the foot of its pedestal at the
overturned altar, and had to suffer under the clubs
of fanatical zealots. When night broke in and the
rioters sought their homes, the few friends of pa-
ganism, perhaps the priests, perhaps some well-to-do
philosophers and admirers of the ancient Greek
civilization, came to the rescue. They met stealthily
at the place of the tumult and with the assistance of
HEAD OF THE VENUS OF MILO.
Front view.
60 THE VENUS OF MILO.
their servants had. the statue carried away down to
a ship at anchor in the harbor. Before the riot could
be renewed on the next morning the ship set sail
for the island of ^lilo where the devotees of the
goddess may have had friends, or where possibly
one of their own number possessed a fann. There
they hid the statue, and it is certain that the act of
concealment was done in the greatest haste, for it
was only lightly covered over, and a mark, discov-
ered later on by careful investigation of the place
of hiding, was scratched into the curbstone on the
wayside to indicate the spot.
This explanation seems to me simple enough to
be acceptable. The facts seem to tell it. Consider
the age when paganism broke down; consider the
fanaticism of the early Christians, the uncultured
mobs led by fanatical monks, mobs capable of tear-
ing to pieces a noble woman — I refer to Hypatia —
in the conviction that they were doing a good deed
pleasing in God's sight. Other statues of pagan
ijods have received exactlv this treatment. Is it
possible to explain the cudgel marks on the statue
of the Venus of ]\Iilo differently?
It seems strange that this explanation has not
been offered before. The data of the conditions in
which the statue was found, the place of hiding,
the political relation of Melos to Athens, and the
character both of the few pagans and of the multi-
tudes of Christians who lived in the beginning of
the Christian era, tell us the story of the statue, its
WHAT THE FACTS REVEAL. 61
sad fate and why it found here a safe place of con-
cealment.
The pagan remnant was small and kept quiet for
fear of persecution, but we may very well imagine
how they lived in the hope that paganism would
celebrate a revival, that the storms of these barbar-
ous outbursts would pass by and the temples of the
gods would be restored in all their ancient glory.
Then would come the time to bring the goddess back-
to her ancient dwelling place, to raise her altar again
and light the sacrifice anew. But though the riots
ceased and the authorities restored order, though
for a short time a pagan emperor sat again on the
throne of Caesar, the ancient gods never returned
and Christianity permanently replaced paganism.
The devotees of the lost cause died without seeing
their hope fulfilled. The desecrated statue remained
hidden and their secret was buried with them in the
grave.
THE MEANING OF "APHRODITE
>f
THE etymolog}^ of the name Aphrodite is doubt-
ful. The Greeks derived it from the word
a(f>p6^ = foam, because the goddess was said to have
risen from the foam of the sea. This wild guess
of ancient Greek philolog}^ may have been respon-
sible for the fable that Uranus (Heaven) nightly
embraced Gaia (Earth) until he was attacked and '
mutilated by his rebellious son Kronos. Uranus,
deprived of his creative ability, retired to the out-
skirts of the world. Mythologists assume that here-
with the creation of the raw material of the universe
ceased, but that the generative principle being now
mingled with the sea changed into foam, whence
rose the goddess that represents all fertility and
creativeness in both vegetable and animal domains.
If this legend of the origin of Aphrodite is not
simply the product of the wrong etymology of her
name^ it is assumed to have been imported from
Phenicia. The only other similar myth known is
^ As we might suppose in reading Hesiod, Th., 195ff, and
Plato, Crat., 406 c.
THE MEANING OF '^APHRODITE." 63
found among the South Sea islanders where Rangi
(Heaven) and Papa (Earth) embraced one another
so closely that no life could originate, Rangi being
regarded as a great blue canopy of stone. Then
Tane Mahuta, their youngest son, corresponding
to Kronos, the youngest child of Uranus and Gaia,
cruelly separated the couple and forced his father
upward and pressed his mother down, thus becom-
ing the creator of life on earth.^
The ancient Greeks were poor philologists and
similar failures of etymological speculation are quite
common among them. Thus they explained the
origin of names like Heracles as "the fame of Hera,"
or Amazon as ''the woman without breasts," or
Prometheus as ''the forethinker," etc. All these
derivations are wild and obviously wrong guesses,
nor may our modern philologists, though more scien-
tific, be always exactly correct. We are taught now
by comparative philology that Prometheus, the fire-
bringer, is the Sanskrit word pramathyns, "the
driller," denoting the hard stick^ which by a swift
rotation in a soft piece of wood produces the spark
that calls forth the beneficent flame.
This explanation seems probable but we cannot
say that our etymologies of other names have been
equally successful.
2 Taylor mentions this Maori legend in his New Zealand,
119. Cf. Andrew Lang. Myth, Ritual and Religion, I, 302, and
Roscher, Lex., s. v. "Kronos," col. 1542.
3 H. Steinthal, "Die Sage von Prometheus," in Zeitschrift
fi'ir Volkerpsychologie und Sprachwissenschaft, II, ii, 8-9.
64 THE VENUS OF MILO.
One recent interpretation of "Aphrodite" would
make us regard the name as an Egyptian importa-
tion, explaining the word to mean Apharadat, "the
gift of Ra/' the sun-god, derived from Pha Raa
Da-t with the prosthetic A; but this, like the sug-
gested derivation of Psyche from Pha Sakhu, ''the
mummy," seems to be a mere accident of homoph-
onv. Other Greek names such as Elvsion from
Aalu, the Elysian Fields of the Eg}'ptians, Charon
from Kerc, driver or skipper (ferryman), are better
attested, but if the name Aphrodite came from
Eg}'pt the cult of a goddess by that name and. char-
acter has been lost or obliterated.
H^ -fj ^
Originally Aphrodite was the same figure as Hera
or Juno, Artemis or Diana and Pallas Athene or
Minerva. These female deities are differentiations
of the idealized and personified activities of woman-
hood : Hera as the queen of heaven, the protectress
of wifehood; Diana of girlhood and virginity;
Athene as the goddess of battles, as protectress of
arts and sciences, as wisdom personified ; Aphrodite,
the personification of beauty and love.
The ancient pagans were not so very unlike the
Christians; e. g., Istar, like the Virgin ^lary, repre-
sented at the same time eternal virginity and mother-
hood, and the name of the temple on the Acropolis
might truly be translated "Church of the Holy Vir-
THE MEANING OF "APHRODITE." 65
gin," for Parthenon is derived from irapBivo^, "vir-
gin."
In prehistoric times there was more reverence
for the female deity than for the male god. So
Ares (or Mars) is the god of fight, of combative-
ness, while Athene is the teacher of the art of war-
fare, of generalship, of strategy in battle.
The character of Aphrodite as a universal prin-
ciple was never lost sight of. She was and remained
the giver of life, joy, love, loveliness, grace, fertility,
increase, exuberance, rejuvenescence, springtime,
restoration of life, immortality, prosperity and the
charm of existence, — and all this she was in one,
all as a universal principle and in its cosmic signifi-
cance.
The same idea is also expressed in Eros, called
in Latin Amor or Cupido, who is regarded as the
oldest and at the same time the youngest of the
gods, represented as a beautiful youth. This same
Eros is said to have existed prior to Aphrodite, for
when she rose out of the sea, Eros met her at the
shore, while according to another version he was
regarded as her son.
The notion that AphrnHite is the cosmic prin-
cjpleoFTove hasfoimd expression i^ poety-^nH
philosophy, but her mythical nature has never been
d'efimtelysettled: TToiiTer, who calls Aphrodite
Cypris (KiVpt?) speaks of her in the Iliad {Y , 312)
as the daughter of Zeus^ and Dione, the goddess
4 Atos Kovprj,
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THE MEANING OF '*APHR0DITE/' 67
who in olden times was worshiped on the AcropoHs
in Athens, in Dodona, and in other locaHties, as the
wife of the Olympian ruler and as his female coun-
terpart. Dione is probably the same word as Hera's
Latin name Juno. As her daughter, Aphrodite is
called Dionaea (Aiojvaia) and also by her mother's
name Dione.
Being the goddess of sexual love, Aphrodite was
also held responsible for all relations between men
and women, and philosophers felt the need of
distinguishing between heavenly love and vulgar
passion, calling the former ''Aphrodite Urania," the
latter ''Aphrodite Pandemos." In Plato's Sympo-
sium (180 D) the heavenly love is described as
"the older one, born without mother, the daughter
of heaven," while the younger and less divine
Aphrodite is the daughter of Zeus and Dione. The
same contrast is brought out in the age of the
Renaissance by Titian in his famous picture of
heavenly and worldly love.
The distinction between celestial and earthly love
however is artificial and has certainly not influenced
the cult of the goddess. It is a later thought, in-
vented by philosophers for the purpose of teaching
a lesson.
THE CULT OF APHRODITE.
P0LYTHEIS3.I is not a stable religion. It
changes with the growth of civilization, and
we do not know a time in which it was not con-
stantly in a state of transition.
The myths which connect Aphrodite in one place
with Adonis, in others with Mars, Hephsestos, An-
chises and other gods or mortals, were originally
several different developments of the same funda-
mental idea, the love story of the goddess of love.
This is quite natural and ought to be expected, but
when in the days of a more international communi-
cation these myths were told in different shapes in
all localities, they in their combination served greatly
to undermine the respect for the goddess and to
degrade the conception of her even as early as in
the time when the Homeric epics were composed.
Nevertheless, since the sarcasm remained limited
for a long time to the circle of heretics and scoffers,
the noble conception of Aphrodite was preserved
down to the latest days of paganism.
In other words Venus was originally the mother
THE CULT OF APHRODITE. 69
of mankind. She was at once the Queen of Heaven
or Juno, the Magna ^Mater or Venus Genetrix, the
educator and teacher or Pallas Athene, the eternal
virgin or Diana, and the all-nourishing earth-god-
dess, Demeter or Ceres ; and this view had better
be stated inversely, that the original mother of man-
kind became differentiated in the course of history
into these several activities of womanhood, as Juno,
Venus, Diana, Ceres and Athene, which divinities
were again reunited in Christianity in the form of
Mary, the Queen of Heaven, the Mother of God, the
Lady as an authority and guide in life, and the
Eternal Virgin.
Aphrodite was worshiped in a prehistoric age, and
the origin of her cult is plainly traceable to the
Orient, especially to Phenicia and further back to
Pamphylia, Syria, Canaan and Babylon. The Phe-
nician Astarte was imported to the islands of the
.Egean Sea. to Cythera, Paphos and Amathus.
Hence even in the Hellenistic age she was still hon-
ored with the names Cytherea, Paphia and Ama-
thusia.
From the .Egean islands the cult of Aphrodite
spread rapidly to Sparta, Athens and other Greek
centers. The barbaric origin of the Aphrodite cult
is in evidence in the myth of Aphrodite's birth as
the foam-born, but it is difficult to say whom we
shall deem responsible for the legend — perhaps the
inhabitants of the islands. Certainly we cannot
lay the burden of the invention of the story upon
70
THE VENUS OF MILO.
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THE CULT OF APHRODITE. 71
the Asiatics, at least not on the Syrians, for accor-
ding to an account of Nigidius Figulus,^ the fish of
the Euphrates found a large egg in the floods and
pushed it ashore, where it was brooded upon by a
dove until the Syrian goddess came forth from it.
An exquisitely graceful relief pictures the birth of
Venus from the foam of the ocean. She appears as
a young maiden covered with a diaphanous garment,
and is being lifted out of the water by the Graces.
The marble is preserved in the National Museum
at Rome and was discovered by excavations in the
grounds of the Villa Ludovisi in 1887.
The Oriental goddess was originally the queen of
the starry heaven, either the moon or the morning
star, and as such she was the same figure which in
other places gave rise to the development of Artemis.
We may emphasize here that like the Christian
Mary the pagan female divinity was at the same
time both the eternal virgin and the celestial mother.
Mythology cannot stand the application of logical
rationalism, and we must not try to make the tra-
ditional legends rigidly consistent.
While we recognize a strong Oriental influence
in the Greek construction of the Aphrodite cult, we
must acknowledge that in Greece we have a new
and independent origin of the divine ideal of fem-
ininity. In Mesopotamia Istar was a very popular
deity, and innumerable idols have been found in
the shape of a naked woman, commonly called
Ws reported in Roscher's Lexikon, s. v. "Aphrodite."
DETAIL FROM THE LUDOVISI RELIEF.
THE CULT OF APHRODITE.
7Z
''Beltis" or ''Lady," but this conception of the god-
dess of femininity cannot be regarded as the proto-
type of the Greek Aphrodite who at an early period
assumed a definitely Greek figure and character.
Without detracting from her universal significance
as the cosmic principle of generation, the artistic
conception of the Greek mind at once idealized her
as the incarnation of loveliness and grace, and from
WINTER. SUMMER.
End pieces of the Ludovisi relief.
Phidias down to the end of paganism she has re-
mained this ideal.
In Cnidos Aphrodite was worshiped in three
forms: as gift-giver (Swpms), as goddess of the high
places (aKpaia) and as the lucky sailor (eiiTrAoca), and
we learn that bloody sacrifices were not permitted
(Tac, Hist., II, 3), even on the main altar in
Paphos.
74 THE VENUS OF MILO,
Originally, Aphrodite was not only love, grace
and beauty, but the mistress, the lady, the queen;
and so she is represented in Cythera as fully armed.
The same is true in Sparta and in Corinth where
her temple was erected on the highest place of the
city, called Acrocorinthus.
The sensual features of the Aphrodite cult were
certainly not absent in ancient Hellas. We know
that in Corinth there were large numbers of hiero-
dules in the temple who helped to make the cere-
monies gorgeous and impressive, but judging from
the language used by ^schylus and Pindar they
were highly respected and received public acknowl-
edgment for their fervent prayers during the Per-
sian wars.
In the early imperial time of Rome, the authority
of Venus was promoted by the fact that she was
the tutelary deity of Caesar, who through the simi-
larity of his name ''J^i^ii-^s" with ''Ji-^^^'^s," the son
of ^neas, was encouraged to derive his legendary
pedigree from .^neas, the mythical founder of the
Latin race, the son of Anchises and Aphrodite.
With the rise of Christianity the worship of
Venus naturally deteriorated very rapidly, and the
fathers of the church referring to all the different
versions of her love affairs maligned her in the eyes
of the world by identifying the Venus Urania with
the Venus Vulgaris, and their views have contrib-
uted a good deal to disfigure her picture in later
centuries.
THE CULT OF APHRODITE.
75
In the times of Caesar she was still the great god-
dess whose domain was not limited to beauty and
love nor even to the procreation of life, in which
capacity she was called Venus Genetrix, but she
VENUS AND ANCHISES.
was also Venus Victrix, or the goddess who in
battle assures victory. Yea, more than all this, she
was the goddess of life and immortality connected
with the chthonian gods — the powers of death in
76 . THE VENUS OF MILO.
the underworld. Her emblem, the pomegranate, is
also found in the hands of Persephone, indicating
a kinship between Aphrodite and the daughter of
Demeter.
It is not accidental that Aphrodite as the goddess
of love and generation is also the queen of the
underworld. She begets life, she restores to life;
she leads into Hades and back out of Hades into the
world of life. It is for this reason that, according
to Pausanias (II, 10, 4), her statue in the temple
at Sicyon carries the chthonian symbols, the apple
and the poppy, in her hands, and there her priestesses
were bound by a vow of chastity.
The chthonian aspect of the Aphrodite cult ap-
pears in the legend of the death of Adonis with all
its details of funeral lamentations and ceremonies
and the great hope of his resurrection. Istar herself
descends to the underworld, as we shall see further
down (see pp. 85-95), and we know at least that
in Cyprus a tomb of Aphrodite has been shown.-
2 Preller, Gricchischc MythoJogic, I, p. 364.
THE GODDESS OF WAR.
ONE special function of the mother goddess
was leadership in war. It was a custom
among the Arabians until
recent times that the war-
riors of a tribe were led in
battle by a girl riding at
their head with breast ex-
posed, inspiring them in
their attack to the display
of irresistible courage; and
if it was a common practice
in prehistoric times, we may
assume that this function of
womanhood established the
character of Istar as the
goddess of war, later on dif-
ferentiated as the Greek Pallas Athene and the
Roman Bellona.
* Engraving on a gem representing the statue of Venus Ery-
cina on the Capitohne. This interpretation does not exclude
other possibiHties. Certainly the attitude of little Eros is
artistic and pleasing.
VENUS VICTRIX.*
After Hirt, Bilderhuch,
Plate VII, 11.
78 THE VENUS OF MILO.
We may be sure that the character of Aphrodite as
Venus Victrix is by no means a late Roman inven-
tion of the days of Caesar but dates back to the most
ancient days of Babylonian tradition. She was from
the start of history the great Magna Mater, the
All-Mother and Queen to whom the people appealed
in all their needs, especially in war. In Greece she
is frequently addressed as vLKr](j>6po<s, bringer of vic-
tory.
A penitential psalm on the destruction of the
ancient city of Erech has been preserved in a frag-
ment which in Theodore G. Pinches's translation
reads thus :^
"How long, my Lady, shall the strong enemy hold
thy sanctuary?
There is want in Erech, thy principal city ;
Blood is flowing like water in E-ulbar, the house
of thine oracle;
He, the enemy, has kindled and poured out fire
like hailstones on all thy lands.
My Lady, sorely am I fettered by misfortune;
My Lady, thou hast surrounded me, and brought
me to grief.
The mighty enemy has smitten me down like a
single reed.
Not wise myself, I cannot take counsel;^
^ The original is written in a Sumerian dialect with a trans-
lation into the Semitic Babylonian. See Records of .the Past,
New Series, Vol. I, p. 85.
"Literally, "I do not take counsel, myself I am not wise."
THE GODDESS OF WAR. 79
I mourn day and night like the fields.
I, thy servant, pray to thee."
As Venus Victrix, the warlike goddess akin to
the Greek Pallas Athene, Istar, appears to Asur-
banipal in a vision, recorded in a cuneiform inscrip-
tion of the annals of this powerful Assyrian king,
and refers to the invasion of Tiumman, King of
Elam. The passage reads in H. Fox Talbot's trans-
lation thus :^
'Tn the month Ab, the month of the heliacal rising
of Sagittarius, in the festival of the great Queen
[Istar] daughter of Bel, I [Asurbanipal, King of
Assyria,] was staying at Arbela, the city most be-
loved by her, to be present at her high worship.
"There they brought me news of the invasion of
the Elamite, who was coming against the will of the
gods. Thus :
"'Tiumman has said solemnly, and Istar has re-
peated to us the tenor of his words: thus: 'T will
• not pour out another libation until I have gone and
fought with him." '
"Concerning this threat which Tiumman had
spoken, I prayed to the great Istar. I approached
to her presence, I bowed down at her feet, I be-
sought her divinity to come and save me. Thus :
" 'O goddess of Arbela, I am Asurbanipal, King
of Assyria, the creature of thy hands, [chosen by
thee and] thy father [Asur] to restore the temples
' Records of the Past, Vol. VII, p. 67.
80 THE VENUS OF MILO.
of Assyria, and to complete the holy cities of Akkad.
I have gone to honor thee, and I have gone to wor-
ship thee. But he Tiumman, King of Elam, never
worships the gods ....
[Here some words are lost.]
" 'O thou Queen of queens, Goddess of war. Lady
of battles, Queen of the gods, who in the presence
of Asur thy father speakest always in my favor,
causing the hearts of Asur and IVlarduk to love me
....Lo! now, Tiumman, King of Elam, who has
sinned against Asur thy father, and has scorned
the divinity of Marduk thy brother, while I Asur-
banipal have been rejoicing their hearts. He has
collected his soldiers, amassed his army, and has
drawn his sword to invade Assyria. O thou archer
of the gods, come like a [thunderstorm] . .in the
midst of the battle, destroy him, and crush him
with a fierv bolt from heaven!'
''Istar heard my prayer. 'Fear not!' she replied,
and caused my heart to rejoice. 'According to thy .
prayer thine eyes shall see the judgment. For I will
have mercy on thee!'
jK + *
''In the night-time of that night in which I had
prayed to her, a certain seer lay down and had a
dream. In the midst of the night Istar appeared to
him, and he related the vision to me, thus :
" 'Istar who dwells in Arbela, came unto me
begirt right and left with flames, holding her bow
THE GODDESS OF WAR. 81
in her hand, and riding in her open chariot as if
going to the battle. And thou didst stand before
her. She addressed thee as a mother would her
child. She smiled upon thee, she Istar, the highest
of the gods, and gave thee a command. Thus :
''take [this bow]," she said, ''go with it to battle!
Wherever thy camp shall stand I will come."
" 'Then thou didst say to her, thus : "O Queen of
the goddesses, wherever thou goest let me go with
thee !" Then she made answer to thee, thus : 'T will
protect thee! and I will march with thee at the time
of the feast of Nebo. ^^leanwhile eat food, drink
wine, make music, and glorify my divinity, until I
shall come and this vision shall be fulfilled."
"'Thy heart's desire shall be accomplished. Thy
face shall not grow pale with fear : thy feet shall
not be arrested : thou shalt not even scratch thy skin
in the battle. In her benevolence she defends thee,
and she is wroth with all thy foes. Before her a
fire is blown fiercely, to destroy thy enemies.' "
Mr. Talbot makes the following editorial com-
ment on the historical event connected with Asur-
banipal's narrative :
"The promises which the goddess Istar made to
the king in this vision of the month Ab were ful-
filled. In the following month (Elul) Asurbanipal
took the field against Tiumman, and his army speed-
ily achieved a brilliant victory. Tiumman was slain,
and his head was sent to Xineveh. There is a bas-
82 THE VENUS OF MILO.
relief in the British Museum representing a man
driving a rapid car, and holding in his hand the
head of a warrior, with this inscription, Kakkadn
Tiumman, 'The head of Tiumman.'
) >)
THE DESCENT INTO HADES.
AS the goddess of love Venus is the restorer of
^ life, and as such she descends into the under-
world and brings the dead back to life. Lewis
Richard Farnell in his Cults of the Greek States^
reproduces a remarkable votive tablet which shows
Hermes the soul-dispatcher {psychopompos) con-
fronting a woman holding in her outstretched hand
a pomegranate blossom (the symbol of both the
chthonian Aphrodite and Persephone) and Eros,
the god of love, on her arm. The obvious meaning
of the tablet indicates that it is love which redeems
from death. This conception of the great goddess
found a fit expression in the myth of Demeter's
daughter Persephone (called in Latin ''Proserpina")
who, after being snatched away by Pluto, the ruler
of Hades, is allowed to return to earth. So life on
earth with its bloom of vegetation dies off each
winter but returns annually in the spring.
This idea became a symbol of human immortality
in the Eleusinian mysteries, presumably derived
' II, PI. XLVIII. p. 697.
84
THE VENUS OF MILO.
from older sources which go back to religious cults
in Babylonia and Asia Minor, and the Christian
doctrine is apparently derived from the same tradi-
tion. Paul says (1 Cor. xv. 36-38) :
"Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quick-
ened except it die. And that which thou sowest,
thou sowest not that bodv that shall be, but bare
EROS IN THE UNDERWORLD.
Votive terra-cotta tablet.
grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other
grain. But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased
him, and to every seed his own body."
Jesus echoes the same argument and uses the same
simile of the grain of wheat in John xii. 24:
"Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn
THE DESCENT INTO HADES. 85
of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth
alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit."
The most important document still at our com-
mand relating to the chthonian Venus is a frag-
mentary poem called "Istar's Descent to Hell." The
main subject is introduced in order to justify the
possibility of conjuring the dead from Sheol. Dr.
Jeremias- explains the situation as follows :
"A man grieves over the death of his sister. He
consults a magus as to how to release the spirit of
the deceased from the prison of Hades. The priest
tells him the story of Istar's descent to Sheol for the
sake of proving that the gates of Sheol are not un-
conquerable, and advises him to address Istar, the
conqueror of Hades, and Tammuz her consort,
with prayer and sacrifice, in order to gain their
assistance. He is requested to comply with funeral
ceremonies at the coffin of the dead and to begin
his- mourning with the assistance of the Uhats, the
companions of Istar. The spirit of the dead, hear-
ing the lamentations of her brother, requests him to
rescue her from the horrors of Sheol through
mourners' music and sacrifices in the davs of Tam-
' For further details see Dr. Alfred Jeremias, who publishes
the text of the passages here quoted and offers a literal Ger-
man translation with editorial notes and other explanations.
The conception of the document as set forth in the quoted
passages is based upon the interpolation of Dr. Jeremias, which
he justifies in his critical notes. Dr. Jeremias's interpretation
of the concluding words is justified bv another cuneiform tablet
which while relating a conjuration of the dead begins with the
same description of Sheol as does the legend of Istar's descent
to Hell.
86 THE VENUS OF MILO.
muz, which is the time when the people sing and
weep, as told by Ezekiel viii. 14, and mourn for
their dead under the shape of Tammuz. The con-
cluding lines of the poem, which are summed up in
these words, form the core of the whole, while the
legend of Istar's descent to Sheol is only an intro-
duction to it, and constitutes a part of the conjura-
tion of the dead. From other documents of Baby-
lonian literature we learn that on the names of Istar
and Tammuz, the hero and heroine of the legends
of the descent to Sheol, depend the hopes of a rescue
from Sheol." {Loc cit., pp. 7-8.)
It appears that people celebrated with special
preference the days of the god Tammuz, who rep-
resented the disappearance of vegetation and its
resurrection to life. The legend of Istar's descent^
to Sheol reads in the translation based on Dr. Jere-
mias's version as follows :
(ob\t:rse of the tablet.)
"To the land of no return, to the land [which
thou knowest( ?)],^
Istar, the daughter of the moon-god, meditated
[to go].
The daughter of the moon-god meditated to go
To the house of darkness, to the seat of Irkalla,
' The ancient poem of Istar's descent to Hades has been cast
into poetic form by Edward Gilchrist. See The Monist, April,
1912. (Vol. XXII, pp. 259-267.)
* The passages in brackets are mutilated in the original and
the words are suggested by the context or sometimes by paral-
lel passages.
THE DESCENT INTO HADES. 87
5. To the house whose visitor never returns,
On the path the descent of which never leads
back,
To the house whose occupants are removed
from the light,
To the place where dust is food, and dirt is
meat,
Where they (the occupants) see no light, where
they dwell in darkness,
10. Where they are clothed like birds, dressed with
wings, ^
Where upon gate and bolt dust is spread.
((
When Istar had reached the g^ate of the land
t)*
of no return.
She spake to the keeper of the gate :
'Keeper of the waters, open thy gate,
15. Open thy gate, — I wish to enter!
If thou openest not, if I cannot enter,
I shall demolish the gate, I shall break the bolt,
I shall smash the threshold, I shall break the
doors ;
I shall lead out the dead, shall make them eat
and live,
20. And unto the crowds of the living the dead
shall I join.'
t(
The keeper opened his mouth and spake
' Perhaps the dress of wings is an expression of the belief
that the_ soul is winged, found also in Egypt, where the soul
of man is compared to a human-headed hawk, in which form it
is at liberty to visit other places.
88 THE VENUS OF MILO.
In reply to the sublime Istar :
'Stay, my lady, do not upset [the door] !
I will announce thv name to Oueen Allatu.'
25. ''The keeper entered and spake to Queen Allatu :
'The water has been crossed by thy sister
Istar. ..."
[The goddess Allatu is greatly agitated about Istar's appear-
ance in Sheol. The poem continues:]
"When Goddess Allatu [heard) this. . . .
Like unto a tree cut down ....
30. Like unto reeds mowed down [she drooped
and spake) :
'What has driven her heart, what. . . .
These waters have I [made encompass Sheol]...
Like the inundation of the deluge, like the
swelling ( ?) waters of a great flood,
I will weep over the men who left their wives.
35. I will weep over the wives who were taken
from their consorts,
Over the little children I will weep, who pre-
maturely [were taken away).^
Go, keeper, open the gate.
And strip her according to the primordial de-
cree.'
The keeper went, he opened the door to her :
40. 'Enter, my lady, let the underworld [Kutu]
rejoice ;
' Why the goddess Allatu proposes to weep is not quite clear.
Perhaps it is a promise to have all the funeral rituals with their
wailings and lamentations properly attended to for the sake of
preventing further attempts at having the dead reclaimed.
THE DESCENT INTO HADES. 89
Let the palace of the land of no return rejoice
at thy arrival!'
"Through the first door he bade her enter and,
stripping her,
Took off from her head the golden crown.
'Why, O keeper, takest thou from my head the
golden crown?'
'Step in, my lady, for such are the commands of
the mistress of the earth.'^
45. Through the second door he bade her enter and,
stripping her,
Took off the ornaments from her ears.
'Why, O keeper, takest thou the ornaments
from my ears?'
'Step in, my lady, for such are the commands of
the mistress of the earth.'
Through the third door he bade her enter and,
stripping her.
Took off the chains from her neck.
'Why, O keeper, takest thou the chains from
mv neck?'
50. 'Step in, my lady, for such are the commands of
the mistress of the earth.'
Through the fourth door he bade her enter and,
stripping her,
Took off the ornaments from her breast.
'Why, O keeper, takest thou the ornaments
from my breast?'
' The goddess Allatu.
90 THE VENUS OF MILO.
'Step in, my lady, for such are the commands of
the mistress of the earth.'
Through the fifth door he bade her enter and,
stripping her,
Took off the gem-covered beh from her hips.
55. 'Why, O keeper, takest thou the gem-covered
belt from my hips?'
'Step in, my lady, for such are the commands of
the mistress of the earth.'
Through the sixth door he bade her enter and,
stripping her.
Took off the bracelets from her hands and feet.
'Why, O keeper, takest thou the bracelets from
my hands and feet?'
'Step in, my lady, for such are the commands of
the mistress of the earth.'
60. Through the seventh door he bade her enter
and, stripping her.
Took off the robe from her body.
"Why, O keeper, takest thou the robe from
my body?'
'Step in, my lady, for such are the commands of
the mistress of the earth.'
Now, when Istar was descended to the land of
no return —
Allatu beheld her, and vehemently upbraided
her ;
65. Istar, forgetful, assaulted her. . . .
Then Allatu opened her mouth and spake,
I
THE DESCENT INTO HADES. 91
Addressing Namtar, her servant, giving him
this comamnd :
'Go, Xamtar, open (?) my....
Let her out .... the goddess Istar,
70. With a disease on her eyes [punish her].
With a disease on her hips [punish her],
With a disease on her feet [punish her],
With a disease on her heart [punish her],
With a disease on her head [punish her],
75. Upon her whole person [inflict diseases].'
When Istar, the lady, [was thus afflicted].
The bull no longer covered the cow, the he-ass
the she-ass,
The lord no longer sought the maiden of the
street.
The lord fell asleep in giving command,
80. The maid-servant fell asleep. ..."
REVERSE OF THE TABLET.
"Pap-sukal, the servant of the great gods,
scratched his face before Samas,
Clothed in mourning and filled with. . . .
Samas went : he went to Sin, his father [and
. wept] ;
Before Ea, the king, he shed tears;
5. Tstar has descended into the land and has not
returned.
Since Istar descended into the land of no re-
turn.
The bull no longer covers the cow,
92 THE VENUS OF MILO.
The jack-ass no longer covers the she-ass,
A man no longer seeks the maiden of the
street,
The lord falls asleep in giving command,
10. The maid-serv^ant falls asleep. . . .
Then Ea in the wisdom of his heart created a
male being,
He created Uddusunamir,^ the serv^ant of the
gods:
'Go forth, Uddusunamir ! to the door of the
land of no return turn thy face,
The seven doors of the land of no return shall
open before thee,
15. Let Allatu see thee, let her rejoice at thy ar-
rival.
When her heart has become calm, and her soul
is comforted.
Conjure her in the name of the great gods,^
Lift up thy head over the source of waters ( ?),
make up thy mind (and speak) :
'Not, O my lady, shall the spring be debarred
from me; from its waters I will drink.'
20. When Allatu heard this,
' Uddusunamir means "his light will illumine." The signifi-
cance of this being does not seem to be clear. Perhaps he is a
mere puppet, an automaton to bear the curse of Allatu without
suffering harm.
' The name of the great gods is the most powerful means of
conjuration, and Ea alone, the god of unfathomable wisdom,
seems to have command of it. The Babylonian origin of the
Talmudic and cabalistic belief in the power of the mysterious
name is fully established.
THE DESCENT INTO HADES. 93
She smote her loins and bit her finger^^ (and
spake) :
*Thou hast made a demand which cannot be
fulfilled—
Hence, Uddusunamir, I will confine thee in the
great prison,
The slime of the city shall be thy food,
25. The gutters of the street shall by thy drink,
The shadow of the wall shall be thy habitation,
The thresholds, thy dwelling-place,
Prison and confinement shall break thy strength.
[Allatu curses Uddusunamir, but the conjuration which he
uttered is too powerful, and she must obey. Thus the power
of the realm of death is broken and Istar is free.]
Allatu opened her mouth and spake,
30. To give command to Namtar, her servant:
'Go, Namtar, demolish the eternal palace.
Demolish the pillars, make the thresholds
quake ;
Lead out the Anunnaki, put them upon the
golden throne, ^^
Sprinkle upon Goddess Istar the water of life;
35. Take her away from me!'
Namtar went and demolished the eternal pal-
ace.
10
The same gestures of grief are recorded in Jeremiah xxxi.
19 for the Hebrews, in Odyssey XXXI, 198 for the Greeks.
In a similar wav, we read of Ea in another document, "when
he heard this he bit his lip" (cf. A. S. K. T., LXXXVI, 24).
" The context does not reveal why the Anunnaki, the seven
evil spirits of Sheol, should be placed upon the golden throne.
94 THE VENUS OF MILO.
He demolished the pillars and made the thresh-
olds (?) quake,
He led out the Anunnaki and placed them upon
the golden throne,
"He sprinkled upon Goddess Istar the waters of
life and led her away :
40. Through the first door he led her and replaced
the robe upon her body;
Through the second door he led her and re-
placed the bracelets upon her hands and
feet;
Through the third door he led her and replaced
the gem-covered belt upon her hips ;
Through the fourth door he led her and re-
placed the ornament upon her breast;
Through the fifth door he led her and replaced
the chains upon her neck;
Through the sixth door he led her and replaced
the ornaments in her ears ;
45. Through the seventh door he led her and re-
placed upon her head the golden crown,"
[The conjurer here addresses the brother and promises the
release of his dead sister from the power of Allatu. The poem
continues :]
'' 'When she (Allatu) does not afford release,
turn to her (to Istar) [thy face].
To Tammuz, the consort of her youth,
Pour pure water and costly balm. . . . [invite a
priest].
THE DESCEXT INTO HADES. 95
Cover him with the sacrificial robe, a crystal
flute may he [blow].
50. Let the Uhats weep with grievous [lamenta-
tions].
Let the goddess Belili break the precious uten-
sili2....
With diamonds shall be filled thy . . . . "
[Now the spell takes effect. The spirit of the departed
sister rises from Sheol:]
"Thus she heard the lamentations of her brother,
the goddess Belili broke the precious
utensil,
With diamonds were filled the. . . . [and the de-
parted spirit said:]
55. 'My only brother, let me not perish.
In the days of Tammuz play the crystal flute,
Play the instrument ....
In those days play to me, the male mourners
and the female mourners
Let them play upon instruments ....
60. Let them breathe incense . . . . "
"The significance of Belili's breaking a precious utensil in
the ritual of lamentation is not clear.
THE MAGNA DEA OF THE NATIONS.
THOUGH we may fairly well assume that in
prehistoric ages all nations revered a Magna
Mater, historical development points to the Orient
as the place whence the cult of Aphrodite was im-
ported into Greece; there it found the soil prepared
by the common belief in a mother goddess, a world-
creatrix, a lady divine and supreme. The Greek
Aphrodite was the same as the Astarte of the Tyr-
ians, the "great goddess" of the Syrians and the
Istar of the Babylonians.
It is quite certain that the cult of this goddess-
mother played a more important part in the world
of primitive mankind than the cult of a God the
Father, the male deity of a later age. The goddess
of love and life under whatever name she may have
been known, as Our Lady, the Queen of Heaven, the
Mistress of the World, the holy mother genctrix of
all living creatures, the Dea optima maxima or Most
High Goddess, was practically the same all over the
world. We may not be mistaken if we attribute
the height of her worship to the age of matriarchy.
THE MAGNA DEA OF THE NATIONS.
97
In prehistoric times the Magna Dea was looked
up to with awe and reverence, possibly even with
a devotion more ardent than in a later period. The
Ancient of Days or Jupiter, i. e., Diespiter, the
father of time and light, was symbolized by the all-
embracing sky and also by the sun. The Greeks
called him Zeus, a name pronounced dzeiis, con-
nected with the Latin dens and dies, and Sanskrit
CARRYING IN PROCESSION THE SYMBOL OFISTAR
deva, the creator and ruler of the world. The
Magna Dea was the all-mother, and it is but to be
expected that when the social conditions of matri-
archy changed into the age of the patriarchs the
reverence for an all-mother was superseded by the
worship of an all-father.
The Magna Dea was all in all to mankind. Her
emblem as the goddess of vegetation and of the sus-
98 THE VENUS OF MILO.
tenance of life was the apple or pomegranate. As
the goddess of the human soul she is represented
as a bird like the Eg^-ptian representation of the
soul, a human-headed hawk; or as a dove, the sym-
bol which later on represents the gnostic Sophia,
the mother of the child-god, and in Christian dog-
matolog}^ the Holy Ghost.
Originally the deity was triune in India, in Egypt,
and in other countries. In India we become ac-
quainted with Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, the
Creator, the Revealer (or Avatar), and the Trans-
former (i. e., the one who destroys and renews).
In Babylon the universe is divided into the three
kingdoms of Heaven, Water and Earth under the
three rulers, Anu, Ea and Marduk; and in Eg}^pt
men worshiped God the father or Osiris, God the
mother or Isis, and God the child or Horus. Similar
trinities are met with in other religions, and the
Christian Trinity, although not taught by Jesus, is
one of the oldest doctrines of the Christian church.
Here indeed the Eg}^ptian conception of God as
father, mother and child makes its first appearance
in the apocryphal writings, for there are passages
in heretical gospels where Jesus speaks of the Holy
Ghost as his mother. This idea might have been
accepted as an orthodox thought if the age had not
been strongly ascetic and dualistic, but on that ac-
count the feminine character of the Holy Ghost
became offensive to the fathers of the church. In
Hebrew the Holy Ghost as Ruah was still conceived
THE MAGNA DEA OF THE NATIONS.
99
as a brooding pigeon, but among the Gentile Chris-
tians the conception of the third person of the Trin-
ity was translated by the neuter noun -jrvevixa, and
in Latin by the masculine spiritus. Nevertheless
ISIS AND HORUS.
From Lenormant.
EGYPTIAN REPRESENTATION
OF THE DEAD MAN AND
HIS SOUL.
the old symbol of the brooding pigeon was retained
and a feminine designation such as Sophia, the con-
sort of God, was occasionally tolerated in the Greek
church and among the Gnostics.
Wings have always been the symbol of thought,
100
THE VENUS OF MILO.
and serve as a simile to represent the soul not only
in Eg}^ptian mythology but also in Babylon and on
ASTARTE AND THE DOVE,
the Greek islands. A human-headed bird attributed
to a primitive period of Babylonian civilization has
THE MAGNA DEA OF THE NATIONS.
101
been interpreted as the soul of Semiramis, and may
represent either a dead person or the goddess of
THE HUMAN-HEADED BIRD.
A figure unearthed among the ruins of Babylon. From
Lenormant.
the dead, and the same idea is expressed in a little
figurine of the Greek islands which shows us a
102
THE VENUS OF MILO.
female deity with a dove on her head. Wt can
scarcely be mistaken if we interpret this little figu-
rine as an amulet denoting the goddess whose em-
blem is the dove. Whether the figure represent the
goddess herself with her emblematic bird or whether
it be the portrait of a dead person protected by the
AMULET* OF THE
MYCENAEAN PERIOD
ISIS AND THE FISH.
dove, is of secondary importance. The main truth
on which we insist here is that the dove is the em-
blem of the great goddess to whom people look'
for salvation in the dark beyond. Thus flocks of
pigeons enjoyed great liberties in Hierapolis, the
holy city of Syria, — probably in the same way that
the pigeons in St. Mark's place are befriended in
* From Woermann's Geschichte der Knnst.
THE MAGNA DEA OF THE NATIONS.
103
Venice both by the inhabitants and by foreign visi-
tors.
Another emblem of the goddess of womanhood is
the fish, as is fully described in Lucian's most inter-
esting treatise ''On the Syrian Goddess." In Eg}^pt
Isis has been represented with a fish surmounting
her head as an emblematic ornament.
In some parts of Greece the hare or rabbit has
also been sacred to Aphro-
dite, unquestionably on
account of the fertility of
that animal. Even to-dav
in Christian times the
Easter hare and the ^gg
are the symbols of spring,
and the Easter festival
cannot be celebrated with-
out them.
A remarkable monu-
ment has been discovered
in Boghaz-Koi in Cappa-
docia. It represents a pro-
cession of gods standing on their symbolic animals,
and what interests us mainly is that it portrays
the meeting of a god and a goddess, he standing
on human beings, she on an animal which is ap-
parently a lioness. Among her followers is a man
on a leopard and two figures standing on a double-
headed eagle. The idea of this symbol was carried
to Europe by crusaders and became the emblem
APHRODITE WITH
RABBIT.
104
THE VENUS OF MILO.
of the Holy Roman empire ; it is still retained in the
imperial arms of Austria and has also been accepted
by the Czar of Russia. The subject of this monu-
-V-r-SSC
w
o
I
N
<
I— I
o
o
o
Pi
w
l-H
1
I— I
w
Pi
ment in Cappadocia is still considered as under
question. There is no explanatioin and there are
no ancient books that can throw light upon it. But
THE MAGNA DEA OF THE NATIONS.
105
the composition speaks for itself. . We see here the
great goddess meeting the heroic god — whatever
names thev mav have borne.
A LATER ASTARTE.
A LEADEN IDOL.
Mardiik (or Melkarth or Bel or Baal) is a deity
who rises to sovereignty through his victory over
the powers of evil, and the climax of his life con-
ASTARTE IN CYPRUS.
From Ohnefalsch-Richter, Kypros.
THE MAGNA DEA OF THE NATIONS.
107
sists in his marriage. Can this great sculpture refer
to any other topic than the festive occasion of the
victorious god's marriage ceremonial when he meets
the great bridal goddess?^
The name Istar has been traced also in the Phe-
nician word Astarte. The goddess was held in
high esteem in Phenicia and was regarded also as
the patroness of navigation. Coins represent her
standing on the prow of a ship, and, strange to say,
very frequently she carries a Latin cross in her arms.
THE GODDESS OF NAVIGATION.
Sidonian coins reproduced from Calmet No. 6.
Beside the cross her emblems are also the moon and
the swastika, and the latter is frequently found on
her dress, and in one very archaic leaden figurine
discovered by Schliemann in the ruins of Troy, the
swastika is placed on her body to indicate the mys-
terious power of procreation. The idol was appar-
ently intended to be carried in the hand, for its
lower part ends in a shapeless stick.
From the excavations of Cyprus we reproduce
^ For further details with regard to this rehef see the authors
The Bride of Christ, p. 8.
108
THE VENUS OF MILO.
SARGENT'S ASTARTE.
Reproduction with the permission of Curtis and Cam-
eron. Altered from their copyright photograph.
THE MAGNA DEA OF THE NATIONS. 109
THE nniACULATE COXXEPTION.
By Murillo.
110 THE VENUS OF MILO.
the picture of a well-preserved statue of Astarte
which must have been the recipient of offerings be-
fore an altar in some of the ancient temples (p. 106).
A beautiful modern picture of Astarte has been
worked out by Sargent in his frescoes on the walls
of the Boston Public Librarv, and we can see on
this very picture her similarity to Murillo's ideal of
Mary in his many paintings of the ''Immaculate
Conception."
^ H^ ^
There is a counterpart of the western Magna Dea
in eastern Asia, but we no longer know it in its
primitive form and have it only as it is represented
in art in the shape of a Buddhist deity, a kind of
female Buddha, called in China Kwan-Yon and in
Japan, Benten. Here again in some cases we find
that the fish is her symbol as it is that of the
Syrian goddess, and she frequently presents a re-
markable similarity to the Christian Virgin ]\Iary.
She is never pictured naked like the Greek Aphro-
dite but is always dressed in the most scrupulously
decent fashion.^
One picture of Kwan-Yon with the fish bears an
inscription which is a poetical expression of wonder
at the mystery of incarnation, and following a literal
translation we render it into English as follows :
* See the author's article. "The Fish as a Mystic Symbol in
China and Japan," The Open Court, July, 1911.
THE MAGNA DEA OF THE NATIONS. Ill
KWAX-YOX AND THE FISH.
In the Pei-lin at Singan-fu. After a Chinese color-print.
112
THE VENUS OF MILO.
i^ A
"Untidy o'er her temples
Falls her disheveled hair.
The maid is easy-going —
In sooth she does not care.
Not decked in precious jew-
els
Nor dressed in gaudy lace,
She carries in her basket
A fish to the market place.
Who thinks that Buddha
were
Made human form in her !"
4 ^
^^:^.
til \
m ^^ Jl ^'"U
A POEM ON KWAN-YON.
Paper impression of a carving in stone.
The Chinese deity Kwan-Yon may, for all we
know, be the Magna Mater of most primitive China.
At least she was an ancient popular goddess. When
Buddhism was introduced into the Middle King-
dom she was too dear to the people to be abandoned
or degraded in rank, and so she was interpreted to
be a female incarnation of the Buddha himself.
Some pictures or statuettes represent her as denoting
motherly love by holding a baby in her arms, which
THE MAGNA DEA OF THE NATIONS.
113
BENTEN, THE JAPANESE GODDESS OF DIVINE
LOVE.
From a relief preserved in the Field Museum Chicago.
''S'
^H
.^
KWAN-YON.
B}' Li Lung-mien (11th cent.)- From the original painting
in the collection of Charles L. Freer in Detroit.
THE MAGNA DEA OF THE NATIONS.
115
grives her an obvious resemblance to the Christian
Marv, the mother of Christ.
?^^
KWAN-YON AS THE BUDDHA.
In the Musee Guimet.
The ancient Chinese were rich in divinities of
all kinds and among them there is a goddess who
116
THE VENUS OF MILO.
in one way or other might easily have developed
into the Buddhist Kwan-Yon. This is the Queen
of Heaven or Holy Alother, who is worshiped with
T'lEN HOU, QUEEN OF HEAVEN.
great fervor in some localities. Emperor K'ang Hi
bestowed upon her the high title of T'ien Hon, that
is, ''Heaven's Ruler," but we may very well assume
THE MAGNA DEA OF THE NATIONS. 117
that she did not originate in his days but existed
since older times. She, or some figure Hke her,
must have been known before the importation of
Buddhism, and Kwan-Yon presupposes the primi-
tive existence of a female deity of love, charity
and universal goodwill.
^ ^ ^
The northern Venus, called Freya, the mother-
goddess of the Teutons and in fact of all the Teu-
tonic races, did not share the fate of the Venus of
classical antiquity. She never deteriorated into the
goddess of sensuality. It is strange that we de-
scendants of the Germanic nations are better posted
on the national gods of Greece and Rome than on
those of our own ancestors. These are mainlv re-
membered from the names of the week days and
even there the god of war. Tin, has become quite
unintelligible in Tuesday. Freya's day, Friday, is
easily recognizable as the Latin dies Veneris or
vendredi, and it is peculiar that on that very day
Christian custom still retains the fish diet of the
ancient Astarte. The motive of course is changed,
and the fish is no longer thought of as the emblem
of Astarte but is eaten in remembrance of the death
of Christ on the cross. Fish has become the diet of
fasting. Such is the logic of tradition, which per-
sists after the reason for it has gradually been for-
gotten.
H. A. Guerber in his Myths of Northern Lands
describes Freya as follows :
118 THE VENUS OF MILO.
''Although goddess of love, Freya was not soft
and pleasure-loving, for the ancient northern races
said that she had very martial tastes, and that as
Valfreva^ she often led the Valkvrs down to the
battle-fields, choosing and claiming one-half the
heroes slain. She was therefore often represented
with corselet and helmet, shield and spear, only the
lower part of her body being clad in the usual flow^-
ing feminine garb.
''Freya transported the chosen slain to Folkvang,
where they were duly entertained, and where she
also welcomed all pure maidens and faithful wives,
that they might enjoy the company of their lovers
and husbands even after death. The joys of her
abode were so enticing to the heroic northern
women that they often rushed into battle when
their loved ones were slain, hoping to meet with the
same fate; or they fell upon their swords, or were
voluntarily burned on the same funeral pyre as the
beloved remains.
"As Freya was inclined to lend a favorable ear
to lovers' prayers, she was often invoked by them,
and it was customars^ to indite love songs in her
honor, which were sung on all festive occasions,
her very name in Germany being used for the for-
mation of the verb jreien, i. e., 'to woo.' "
' Val means "the battle-field" ; the name Valkyrie designates
"the one who chooses," viz., the maiden of Odin who selects
heroes for Valhall, the great hall of the god of battles. The
root Val is still preserved in the modern German word IVahl-
statt, "place of battle."
THE MAGNA DEA OF THE NATIONS.
119
FREYA.
From Guerber's Myths of Northern Lands.
120 THE VENUS OF MILO.
When the conception of the mother goddess of
antiquity began to decay, a new faith spread and
under a new name the old ideal was revived as
Mary, ^lother of God, Maria Theotokos; the star
of the sea, or Stella Maris ; and the ItaHan fishermen
sing to her the beautiful hues,
"O sanctissima, O piissiyna,
Dulcis mater amata."
THE ORIGIN OF WOMAN.
THE problem of womanhood has found differ-
ent expressions in different ages. In pre-
historic times all great questions were answered
mythologically. Cosmogeny and anthropogeny, in-
cluding gynecogeny, were expressed in stories of
gods, while in later periods the same facts remained
and found different solutions in religious dogmas
and still later in scientific investigations.
The same subjects have been treated in a differ-
ent spirit during the Christian era and again differ-
ently still under the influence of a scientific world-
conception. Socrates respected the gods but he no
longer believed in them as personalities. He ex-
plained them as signifying some facts of experience.
To him love found expression in a belief in Aphro-
dite and in her powerful son, Eros. Further, his
disciple Plato explains to us the significance of love
and devotes a special dialogue to a discussion of its
meaning in every aspect. This dialogue of Plato's,
the Symposium, may truly be characterized as the
most poetical and most interesting discussion of
122 THE VENUS OF MILO.
Greek philosophy. It tells of a banquet to which
Agathon has invited his friends, among whom we
find the philosopher Socrates, the poet Aristophanes
(the disciple of Socrates), Pausanias, Phaedrus
and some others. After dinner Phaedrus proposes
to make speeches in honor of love, and Pausanias
begins by drawing a distinction between heavenly
and earthly love, extolling the former and giving
scant praise to the latter. Aristophanes is the next
speaker, but, being prevented by a severe hiccup
from taking up the discussion, gives precedence to
Eryximachus, the physician. This speaker approves
the distinction made by Pausanias, but generalizes
the conception of love by regarding it as a universal
principle, bringing about the harmony that regulates
nature in the course of the seasons in its relations
of moist and dry, hot and cold, etc., and whose
absence is marked by diseases of all sorts. Aris-
tophanes, having recovered from his hiccup, pro-
poses to offer a new explanation setting forth a
novel theor}^ of the origin of human nature. We
quote extracts from the translation of Jowett :
''Primeval man was round, his back and sides
forming a circle; and he had four hands and four
feet, one head witli two faces, looking opposite
ways, set on a round neck and precisely alike; also
four ears, two privy members and the remainder
to correspond. He could walk upright as men now
do, backward and forward as he pleased, and he
could also roll over and over at a great pace, turn-
THE ORIGIN OF WOMAN. 123
ing on his four hands and four feet, eight in all,
like tumblers going over and over with their legs
in the air; this was when he wanted to run fast. . . .
Terrible was their might and strength, and the
thoughts of their hearts were great, and they made
an attack upon the gods ; of them is told the tale of
Otys and Ephialtes who, as Homer says, dared to
scale heaven, and would have laid hands upon the
gods. Doubt reigned in the celestial councils.
Should they kill them and annihilate the race with
thunderbolts, as they had done the giants, then
there would be an end of the sacrifices and worship
which men offered to them ; but, on the other hand,
the gods could not suffer their insolence to be unre-
strained. At last, after a good deal of reflection,
Zeus discovered a way. He said : 'Methinks I have
a plan which will humble their pride and improve
their manners ; men shall continue to exist, but I
will cut them in two and then they will be dimin-
ished in strength and increased in numbers ; this
will have the advantage of making them more profit-
able to us. They shall walk upright on two legs,
and if they continue insolent and will not be quiet,
I will split them again and they shall hop about on
a single leg.' He spoke and cut men in two, like a
sorb-apple which is halved for pickling, or as you
might divide an tgg with a hair; and as he cut
them one after another, he bade Apollo give the face
and half of the neck a turn in order that the man
might contemplate the section of himself: he would
124 THE VENUS OF MILO.
thus learn a lesson of humility. Apollo was also
bidden to heal their wounds and compose their
forms. So he gave a turn to the face and pulled
the skin from the sides all over that which in our
language is called the belly, like the purses which
draw in, and he made one mouth at the center which
he fastened in a knot (the same which is called the
navel) ; he also moulded the breast and took out
most of the wrinkles, much as a shoemaker might
smooth leather upon a last; he left a few, however,
in the region of the belly and navel, as a memorial
of the primeval state. After the division the two
parts of man, each desiring his other half, came
together, and throwing their arms about one an-
other, entwined in mutual embraces, longing to
grow into one, they were on the point of dying
from hunger and self-neglect, because they did not
like to do anything apart; and when one of the
halves died and the other survived, the survivor
sought another mate, man or woman as we call
them — being the sections of entire men or women
— and clung to that."
This ingenious theory of primitive man as a union
of two human creatures is perhaps older than Plato
and may not be original with him. At any rate the
Biblical passage in Gen. i. 27 and Gen. ii 21-22 may
also have been given the interpretation of man's
creation of Adam and Eve. The oldest texts read
plainly : ''And God created man in his image, in the
image of God created he him, male and female
THE ORIGIN OF WOMAN. 125
created he them"; but it has been pointed out that
the same primitive man is here spoken of, first in
the singular as ''him," and then at the end of the
verse in the pkiral, ''them." The idea that originahy
Adam comprised in himself the nature of Eve as
well is suggested by the story that Eve was taken
out of the the side of Adam and was formed from
one of his ribs.
Obviously the idea expressed here in this passage
of Genesis is ultimately the same as that of the
Greek poet Aristophanes, and from the standpoint
of modern physiolog}^ neither man nor woman is
an individual, but the combination of two, viz., the
father and mother. Each one of them, man alone
or woman alone, is but a one-sided half of human
existence. Each, by itself alone, is doomed to die;
both together are immortal.
The Genesis story of the creation of woman is
portrayed in many of the artistic representations
of the creation of Eve.
Suggestions made to explain the original story
of the creation of man in the sense suggested by
Aristophanes in Plato's Symposium, may not be
tenable but they are not altogether senseless.
We must consider that primitive legends have
originated from curiosity with regard to some prob-
lem that has presented itself to man in the childhood
of the race. In our present case we have to deal
with the question why the ribs of man's chest do
not entirely enclose the body, but leave unprotected
126 THE VENUS OF MILO.
an opening in the middle, the so-called procardium,
where they turn upward. The primitive answer to
this problem was the story we have been discussing,
and thence the notion seems implied that before
Eve, the feminine portion of man, had been taken
out of his side he must have been an androgynous
being, and we will add that there is a scientific truth
underlying this primitive idea.
Living substance is originally asexual, or rather
bisexual,^ and in its primitive state it is immortal.
A moner does not experience what we call death ;
unless it is crushed or destroyed by poison it lives
on and grows. When it outgrows its proper size it
divides into two parts. It does not die; nor does
it beget a young moner ; it divides. There are two
new moners, but there is not a mother and a child ;
the two are coordinate. Both are mothers and both
are children. Death is not the original lot of life.
Death comes into the world bv birth. Life in itself
can be destroyed by physical violence or by chem-
ical means, but if it is not thus destroyed it is un-
ending ; or, in other words, immortality is a fact.
The differentiation of life into two sexes places
a limit upon the existence cf the dift'erentiated parts.
Each individual grows to a definite size and is lim-
ited to a definite span of duration : 'The days of
our years are threescore years and ten ; and if by
reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is
their strength labor and sorrow
)>
^ See the author's Soul of Man, pp. 399ff.
THE ORIGIN OF WOMAN. 127
The story of the garden of Eden was given a
symboHcal interpretation at an eary date. We read
in Origen's refutation of Celsus (Book IV, Chapter
XXXVIII) :
"In the next place, as it is his object to slander
our scriptures, he [Celsus] ridicules the following
statement : 'And God caused a deep sleep to fall
upon Adam, and he slept; and he took one of his
ribs, and closed up the flesh instead threof ; and the
rib, which he had taken from the man, made he a
woman,' and so on ; without quoting the words
which would give the hearer the impression that they
are spoken with a figurative meaning. He would
not even have it appear that the words were used
allegorically, although he says afterward, that 'the
more modest among Jews and Christians are
ashamed of these things, and endeavor to give them
somehow an allegorical signification.' "
It is not an accident that the fruit of the tree of
life was conceived by Christians at an early date as
an apple or pomegranate, the symbol of Aphrodite.
We must assume that the apples of the Hesperides
which Hercules was requested to obtain, and also
the apples of Iduna bestowing immortality upon the
Teutonic gods, possess ultimately the same signifi-
cance as the apple of Eve.
^ ^ ^
We do not mean to gather here all the traditions
about the origin of woman, but we will quote two
accounts from a modern book of Hindu tales, called
128 THE VENUS OF MILO.
•
A Digit of the Moon and Other Love Stories from
the Hindu, and translated from the original manu-
scripts by F. W. Bain. Here we are told of a king
who falls in love with a princess when he sees her
picture. He leaves his kingdom in the hands of his
ministers and travels out in search of his love, ac-
companied by his faithful companion Rasakosha.^
The passage containing the story of the origin of
woman reads thus :
"One day, as they rested at noon beneath the
thick shade of a Kadamba^ tree, the King gazed
for a long time at the portrait of his mistress. And
suddenly he broke silence, and said, 'Rasakosha,
this is a woman. Now, a woman is the one thing
about which I know nothing. Tell me, what is the
nature of women?' Then Rasakosha smiled, and
said : 'King, you should certainly keep this question
to ask the Princess ; for it is a hard question. A
very terrible creature indeed is a woman, and one
formed of strange elements. A propos, I will tell
you a story : listen.
^In the beginning, when Twashtri^ came to the
(( Cl
* Pronounce Russakosh. The name refers to the part he will
play in the story; it means both "a ball of mercury," and "a
treasure of taste, wit, literary sentiments or flavors," a sort of
walking encyclopedia. The King's companion is a salient figure
in Hindu drama : he is a sort of Sancho Panza, minus the
vulgarity and the humor.
^ "A tree with orange-colored fragrant blossoms."
* The Hindu Vulcan, sometimes, as here, used for the Cre-
ator, dhatri = Plato's Sefnovpyos. Sanskrit literature is the
key to Plato : much of his philosophy is only the moonlike re-
flection of Hindu mythology-.
THE ORIGIN OF WOMAN. 129
creation of woman, he found that he had exhausted
his materials in the making of man, and that no
soHd elements were left. In this dilemma, after
profound meditation, he did as follows : He took the
rotundity of the moon, and the curves of creepers,
and the clinging of tendrils, and the trembling of
grass, and the slenderness of the reed, and the bloom
of flowers, and the lightness of leaves, and the
tapering of the elephant's trunk, and the glances
of deer, and the clustering of rows of bees,^ and the
joyous gaiety of sunbeams, and the weeping of
clouds, and the fickleness of the winds, and the
timidity of the hare, and the vanity of the peacock,
and the softness of the parrot's bosom, and the
hardness of adamant, and the sweetness of honey,
and the cruelty of the tiger, and the warm glow of
fire, and the coldness of snow, and the chattering
of jays, and the cooing of the kokila/' and the
hypocrisy of the crane, and the fidelity of the cJiak-
razvaka'^ and compounding all these together, he
made woman and gave her to man. But after one
week man came to him and said : Lord, this creature
that thou hast given me makes rny life miserable.
She chatters incessantly, and teases me beyond en-
durance, never leaving me alone : and she requires
incessant attention, and takes all my time up, and
" Hindu poets see a resemblance between rows of bees and
eye-glances.
® The Indian cuckoo. The crane is a by-word for inward
villainy and sanctimonious exterior.
"The chakrazi'dka, or Brahmany drake, is fabled to pass the
night sorrowing for the absence of his mate and she for him.
130 THE VENUS OF MILO.
cries about nothing, and is always idle; and so I
have come to give her back again, as I cannot live
with her. So Twashtri said : Very well : and he
took her back. Then after another week, man came
again to him, and said : Lord I find that my life is
very lonely since I gave back that creature. I re-
member how she used to dance and sing to me, and
look at me out of the corner of her eye, and play
with me, and cling to me ; and her laughter was
music, and she was beautiful to look at, and soft to
touch : so give her back to me again. So Twashtri
said : Ver}- well : and gave her back again. Then
after only three days, man came to him again, and
said : Lord, I know not how it is ; but after all, I
have come to the conclusion that she is more of a
trouble than a pleasure to me : so please take her
back again. But Twashtri said : Out on you ! Be
off! I will have no more of this. You must manage
how you can. Then man said : But I cannot live
with her. And Twashtri replied : Neither could you
live without her. And he turned his back on man.
and went on with his work. Then man said : What
is to be done ? for I cannot live either with or with-
out her.'
"And Rasakosha ceased, and looked at the King.
But the King remained silent, gazing intently at the
portrait of the Princess."
Another story, of like character, is told in the
same book, on pages 372-374, only with the differ-
ence that it points out a lesson for woman that she
THE ORIGIN OF WOMAN. 131
must cleave to her husband becaiise she possesses
no independent existence by herself. (The same,
however, in the Indian story is not true of man.)
This is the explanation the faithful wife Wana-
wallari gives to the Brahman who tempts her to
leave her husband. She says :
''Once there was a time when there were neither
men nor women, but the universe existed alone.
And then one day, when the Creator was meditating
with a view to further creation, he said to himself :
'Something is wanting to complete the creation
which I have created. It is blind, and unconscious
of its own curious beauty and excellence.' There-
upon he created a man. And instantly the creation
became an object of wonder and beauty, being re-
flected like a picture in the mirror of the mind of
the man. Then the man roamed alone in the world,
wondering at the flowers and the trees and the ani-
mals, and at last he came to a pool. And he looked
in and saw himself. Then full of astonishment,
he exclaimed: 'This is the most beautiful creature
of all.' And he hunted incessantly through the
whole world to find it, not knowing that he was
looking for himself. But when he found that in
spite of all his endeavors he could never do more
than see it on the surface of pools, he became sad
and ceased to care about anything. Then the Cre-
ator, perceiving it, said to himself: 'Ha! this is a
difficulty which I never foresaw, arising naturally
from the beauty of my work. But now, what is to
132 THE VENUS OF MILO.
be done? For here is this man, whom I made to
be a mirror for my world, snared in the mirror of
his own beauty. So I must somehow or other cure
this evil. But I cannot make another man, for there
would be two centers to the circle of the universe.
Neither can I add anything to the circumference of
nature, for it is perfect in itself. There is necessary,
therefore, some third thing: not real, for then it
would disturb the balance of the universe; nor un-
real, for then it would be nothing : but poised on the
border between reality and nonentity.' So he col-
lected the reflections on the surface of the pools,
and made of them a woman. But she, as soon as
she was made, began to cry. And she said : 'Alas !
alas! I am, and I am not.' Then said the Creator:
'Thou foolish intermediate creature, thou art a non-
entity only when thou standest alone. But when
thou art united to the man, thou art real in partici-
pation with his substance.' And thus, O Brahman,
apart from her husband a woman is a nonentity
and a shadow without a substance : being nothing
but the mirror of himself, reflected on the mirror
of illusion."
:jj ;{c ^
Earlv Christian art took little or no interest in
the parents of mankind. So far as we can discover
neither the catacombs of Rome nor Christian sar-
cophagi are adorned with representations of Adam
and Eve. Wherever they may occur they are rare
exceptions. There is no trace of them in the fondi
THE ORIGIN OF WOMAN.
133
d'oro (gold-bottomed glasses), nor in the mosaics.
In painting they become more and more frequent
in the beginning of the Middle Ages, and we repro-
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duce here, as one of the oldest representations of
the subject, a picture from the so-called Alcuin
Bible preserved in the British Museum.
134 THE VENUS OF MILO.
The name ''Alcuin Bible" is not justified, for the
work dates from some time after Alcuin ; but after
all it comes from his school, and the book was pro-
duced in Tours about the middle of the ninth cen-
tury, still showing the influence of the brilliant
scholar of Charlemagne's court.
We will say here that the so-called Alcuin Bible
is severely criticized by Anton Springer on account
of "the ugliness of its figures," but there is more to
be seen in this picture than mere awkwardness of
style. The psychologV' of the picture here reproduced
is exceedingly good. The eyes of Adam and Eve,
and of the Lord in rebuking them, show real appre-
ciation of the mental processes of the individuals.
God walks into the garden with his finger raised,
like a teacher who rebukes children caught stealing
apples. God's finger is not straight, a fact which
presupposes a close observation of life. His eyes
express kindliness as well as admonition, while
Adam and Eve stand conscience-stricken by the
side of the tree. They do not dare to look into the
face of God, and Adam, with his clumsy hand,
points to Eve as the cause of the evil, wdiile her
face expresses admission, though in her turn she
lays the blame on the snake which stands erect at
her left.
It is true that the technique is abominable. The
heads are ridiculously large, and the hands are out
of proportion. The bodies do not express the beauty
generaJly credited to both Adam and Eve as the
THE ORIGIN OF WOMAN. 135
most perfect handiwork of God. The paints in the
picture are reported to be no better than the draw-
ing. The flesh is of a gray color shaded with ma-
roon streaks. In contrast to the sickly and poverty-
stricken appearance of the human couple the good
Lord is dressed in gold, like a wealthy nobleman of
the age, and the scene is shown to be in Paradise
by the trees too being overlaid with gold. Never-
theless the situation is very clearly a garden, copied
from nature, and the very stony% with all its details,
could be reconstructed from this picture.
In time, with the advance of art. the figures of
Adam and Eve come more and more to assume the
artistic appearance of natural beauty. Adam and
Eve represent mankind in its primitive state, devoid
of spirituality but perfect in health and vigor. It is
noteworthy that Christian art portrays in them
paganism in its rudeness and ignorance, and so they
acquire a certain relationship to Greek antiquity.
In the Renaissance we reach a perfection in the
figures of Adam and Eve which attains the ideal of
classical beauty. Every painter believed it his duty to
represent the two fatal scenes, the fall of man and the
expulsion from Paradise. Similar scenes also begin
to appear in sculptured reliefs. A scene on one side
of the large pillars in the front of the cathedral at
Orvieto is devoted to the subject of Eve's creation.
The creation of man and woman is the first scene
portrayed on Ghiberti's great bronze entrance-doors
of the baptister}^ at Florence. These beautiful re-
136
THE VENUS OF MILO.
liefs represent the beginning of a new and greater
period of art. It is Ghiberti's merit to have created
an originally Christian conception quite different
< ^
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from the classical reliefs of plastic art. We observe
in his work evidence of a close study of garments
and draperies, and the attempt to bring out not only
THE ORIGIN OF WOMAN.
137
bodily beauty but a spiritual expression and allegor-
ical meaning. Most of the characters presented are
plainly portraits of men and women who have
served as living models.
In the lower left corner of this panel on Ghiberti's
DETAIL FROM GHIBERTI'S DOORS.
First panel.
door God is creating man. In the center he is rais-
ing Eve from the side of the sleeping Adam, who
lies prostrate on the ground. God is here always
surrounded and assisted by angels, who lift up Eve
while the good Lord watches her rise. In the middle
138
THE VENUS OF MILO.
left part of the picture we see Adam and Eve taking
the apple from the serpent which is entwined about
the tree between them. In the right corner our un-
to
c
r
r-
<
u
fortunate ancestors are being driven out of Para-
dise. Eve stands in despair, while Adam is visible
in the rear.
THE ORIGIN OF WOMAN.
139
ADAM AND EVE IN PARADISE.
By Gustave Dore.
140
THE VENUS OF MILO.
]\Iichelangelo's Creation of Eve is represented on
the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican, and
is perhaps the most vigorous expression of the orig-
in
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c
<
inal strength of the mother of mankind. It will be
observed that here too Eve comes from Adam's side,
although the picture seems to show her fully grown.
THE ORIGIN OF WOMAN. 141
From among the more modern pictures we repro-
duce a drawing by Gustave Dore representing Adam
and Eve. Here we see them in their state of inno-
cence, Eve being pictured as rechning on the ground,
while Adam looks upon her in love and admiration.
Of the more recent pictures we will mention only
those of Schnorr von Carolsfeld, who has succeeded
most effectively in striking the proper traditional
note in Bible illustrations. He represents Adam
and Eve according to the dogmatic belief of Prot-
estant Christianity. In the scene here reproduced
they are portrayed after their expulsion from Para-
dise in their comfortable primitive home, where
Adam, leaning on his hoe, rests from his labors
while Eve sits in the background with a distaff in
her hand, and their two sons are playing about them.
^ ^ ^
And now, in conclusion, the question as to the
place of this theme in the art of the future. Has not
the present generation lost interest in our ancestors ?
Since the legend is no longer believed literally our
artistic imagination is not attracted so strongly by
it. The story of the fall of man has become an
allegory, an interesting tale, but it is no longer a
truth. We believe now in evolution, and so Gabriel
Max has pictured a new Eve for us which is the
mother of modern man, — the mother who be-
queathes to her son a deeper comprehension of life
and a truer insight into the nature of things.
142
THE VENUS OF MILO.
PRIMITIVE MAN,
By Gabriel Max.
THE ORIGIN OF WOMAN. 143
The picture is at first sight repulsive, but the
more we look at it and the more we studv the artist's
intentions, the more it grows on us. Here is a prim-
itive couple of the ape-man type, fossil remains of
which have been found in the Neanderthal, in Cann-
statt and in Spy. They must have been ver}^ savage,
and we shudder at their appearance. How unpleas-
ant it would be to meet such creatures in a lonely
forest I The male is very brutish while the female
shows traces of a dawning intelligence.
Verily, we discover in this scene represented by
Gabriel ]\Iax a close resemblance to pictures of the
holy family. Ancl considered rightly, the similar-
ity is by no means fortuitous, for here we have
indeed a holy family. It is an uncultured primitive
couple of a speechless tribe of forest men, yet the
hope of progress and a brave determination to take
up the battle of life for the sake of the babe that
is born to them becomes visible in the mother's
eves.
After all. the wife of Jwjuo alaliis, of the primi-
tive speechless man, is still the same Eve. There is
the same sacrifice of motherlove, the same determi-
nation of bringing to life the man of the future, the
higher, better, nobler man, whose life will be much
more worth living than was her own.
This is the secret of life, that we live not for our-
selves but for others. If mankind were one great
immortal being, how monotonous life would be;
how egotistical would all our aspirations become!
144 THE VENUS OF MILO.
But nature renders all egotism futile. None of us
finds an abiding home here on earth ; we pass away
and new generations fill the places we leave vacant.
Daily the world grows older, and yet it remains
ever young. There is the same happiness, the same
bliss and joy that ever thrilled the heart of a mother.
Christianity has abolished Venus, the great mother
goddess, but Eve has taken her place; and if Eve
too is to be deposed mankind will still cling to the
old idea of eternal womanhood, the patron of love
and loveliness, of wifehood and of motherhood.
APHRODITE IN ART.
T
HE oldest assured statues of Venus, of an all-
nourishing mother goddess, are perhaps the
BABYLONIAN CLAY FIGURES.
little figurines frequently found in Mesopotamia
representing ''the Lady" or Beltis (the feminine of
146
THE VENUS OF MILO.
Bel, ''the Lord") in the shape of a naked woman,
sometimes with a child in her arms ; but we may
fairly well assume that even the artists of the stone
age took up this all-absorbing subject, and if this
THE VENUS OF BRASSEMPOUY.
be the case we may be justified in calling the torso
of a naked female figure discovered in Brassempouy
a Venus, — so far the oldest Venus that has come
down to us.
APHRODITE IX ART.
147
LAKSHMI.
In the Musee Guimet.
148
THE VENUS OF MILO.
In India the goddess of beauty was revered under
the name of Lakshmi, and we need not doubt that
she still finds worshipers among the Hindu popu-
lation of to-day, but there are no statues left of
the age of ancient Brahmanism. All monuments
are of comparatively late origin; in fact the large
A CILICTAN COIN.
COIN OF TARSUS
COIN OF GAULOS.
COIN OF PERGA.
mass of Hindu idols is quite modern, although it
represents art and religious notions of a typically
primitive character.
Another and, as it seems, independent develop-
ment can be traced from the worship of stone
pillars or bethels. A bethel, i. e., ''house of God,"
well known from the Bible as a monument of divine
APHRODITE IN ART.
149
revelation, developed gradually into the represen-
tation of a stiff female figure like the Diana of
Ephesus, but we cannot doubt that the primitive
idea of it was the worship of an all-nourishing
mother. From her the Greek conception of the
chaste moon goddess, the virgin Artemis or Diana,
COINS OF PERGA IN PAMPHYLIA.
THREE ARTEMIS MEDALS.
developed in course of time; but the Diana of
Ephesus still preserves symbols of a pantheistic con-
ception of the All under the allegory of a mother
goddess. (For illustrations see pages 152 and 153.)
Among the Semites the oldest bethels, or houses
of God, were pillars of stone. We need not assume
150
THE VENUS OF MILO.
that they were gods or goddesses, for judging from
BibHcal information they may be interpreted as
monuments marking a holy place, i. e., a spot where
a deity had revealed himself in some way.
The primitive form of a bethel* or as the Greeks
transcribed the Phenician term, /SalrvXo^, has often
been represented on coins. Sometimes two columns
are placed, one on each side, and the stone is fre-
quently accompanied with the symbols of the god-
COIN OF ANTIOCHUS EUER-
GETES.
ISTAR ON A
. COIN OF
TARSUS.
dess, fruit and eggs ; sometimes doves perch on the
sanctuary; sometimes the pillar is covered with a
temple roof. We know one instance in which it
l)ears the symbol of a Latin cross and gradually it
assumes in a coarse style the features of a woman.
Such is the beginning of the manufacture of idols
which at first are extremely stiff and assume only
gradually — indeed very slowly — an artistic shape.
APHRODITE IN ART.
:i5
f At the dawn of the historic age the oldest Greek
1 statues and paintings of Venus show her fully robed
U--:
and draped. Great numbers of Aphrodite amulets
^ .^^
~- ■'t.^.jjjjjs.
COIX OF EMESA.
COIN OF lASOS CARIA.
COIX OF PAPHOS.
CYPRUS.
COIX OF lULIA GORDCS.
LYDIA.
of small size and made of glazed terra-cotta have
been found mainly on the .^gean islands where her
cult had spread from Babylon and Syria. They re-
semble the Babylonian Beltis statuettes in having
THE DIANA OF EPHESUS IN THE VATICAN.
After a photograph.
APHRODITE IN ART.
153
m
.'^i
THE DIANA OF EPHESUS.
Alabaster statue now in the museum of Naples. (Roscher,
lex., I, col. 588.)
154
THE VENUS OF MILO.
the arms crossed over the breast, but as a rule their
hips are unnaturally broad. Some of them have a
j bird's (possibly a pigeon's) head and all have large
/e^rs with earrings.
The very oldest real statues of Aphrodite, prod-
ucts of primitive manufacture, have been lost, and
none of the temple idols have sur-
vived Christian iconoclasm, but we
have information that Kanachus^
in the sixth centurv- before Christ,
and Kalamis, Phidias and Alcame-
nes in the fifth, haye_represented
the goddess as dig;-nified_and severe.
We reproduce here drawings of
of archaic statues fully dressed.
Some of them are still awkward
but give evidence of the artist's
reverence. An archaic Venus of
the style familiar in Pompeii was
formerly regarded as a Moera but
to-day after Gerhard's interpretation it is considered
as a Venus Proserpina.
The statue by Kalamis which once stood upon
the Acropolis at Athens and was called Aphro-
dite Sosandra- is also fully dressed, but much
more graceful. A veil is tied about her hair, and
in her right hand the goddess is clasping some
* Terra-cotta in Berlin Museum (Roscher, Lex., I, col. 407).
^ See Pausanias 2, 10, 4.
'Cf. Roscher, Lex., I. cols. 411-412, and Preller, Gr. M., I,
p. 383.
CYPRIAN
APHRODITE.*
APHRODITE IX ART.
folds of her upper garment, while her extended
left hand holds a pomegranate blossom.
ARCHAIC APHRO- ARCHAIC VENUS IX POMPEIAN
DITE WITH DOVE STYLE.
Roscher, Lex., I, 409.
Among the Attic votive reliefs there is one inter-
preted as Aphrodite and Ares,^ which shows Aphro-
* See Roscher, Lex., I, col. 406, and Monuments grecs, PI. 1.
156
THE VENUS OF MILO.
dite unveiling her face to Ares. She holds a pitcher
in her right hand and is pouring its contents into a
APHRODITE SOSANDRA BY KALAMIS.
From Roscher, Lex., I, col. 412.
vessel in his hands. It is also to be noted that the
action takes place above an empty altar. The child
APHRODITE IN ART.
157
behind her in this connection can only represent her
son Eros.
In the National Museum at Rome there is an
Attic sculpture of the fifth century which is some-
APHRODITE AND ARES.
Votive relief from Monuments grecs, PI. I.
what bolder in showing the outlines of the figure.
This Aphrodite is clad in a very diaphanous gar-
ment, the left breast being quite uncovered.
In the beautiful statue by Alcamenes, a copy of
158
THE VENUS OF MILO.
which is still preserved in. the Louvre, the dress
seems to be of slightly heavier texture and the pos-
ATTIC SCULPTURE OF THE FIFTH CENTURY B. C
In the National Museum at Rome.
ture more simple and dignified. In her left hand
the goddess holds a pomegranate and is lifting with
APHRODITE OF ALCAMENES, KNOWN AS VENUS
GENETRIX.
160
THE VEXUS OF MILO.
HEAD OF THE CXIDIAN VENUS,
her right hand a corner of her drapery above her
right shoulder.
It was in the days of the highest development of
THE CNIDIAN VENUS OF PRAXITELES.
In the Vatican Museum at Rome.
162
THE VENUS OF MILO.
Greek art that the greatest artists dared to show
the goddess of love in perfect nudity. The statues
of Phidias still retain the severe expression of her
divine character, but Praxiteles endeavors to show
her beauty as in primitive times without any dress,
in a careless but graceful and artistic pose. So at
least appears the most authoritative record of her
appearance on the Cnidian coin. Other statues,
THE VENUS OF PRAXITELES ON A CNIDIAN COIN.
From Roscher, Lex., I, col. 416.
especially the Vatican marble known as the Venus
of Praxiteles, are partly dressed. It is assumed
that many replicas of ancient masterpieces did not
follow their originals in all details.
This statue of Praxiteles was ordered by the
Cnidians from the artist for public worship, and
when finished they placed it in the temple of Aphro-
dite Euploia built especially to serve as a shrine for
APHRODITE IN ART.
163
this piece of art. The goddess was the patroness of
the island of Cnidos and therefore her image was
HEAD OF THE CROUCHING VENUS.
impressed upon the Cnidian coins as the great artist
had depicted her. The best copies of the Cnidian
VENUS CROUCHING IN THE BATH.
In the Vatican.
APHRODITE IX ART.
165
VENUS WITH THE UNGUENT JAR.
In the Vatican.
Aphrodite are preserved in the Vatican and in the
Glyptothek at Munich.
The Vatican is rich in Venus statues of a similar
166 THE VENUS OF MILO.
type which have been worked out in the spirit of
Praxiteles, and we here reproduce photographs of
what has been called the crouching Venus and also
the Venus with the unguent jar.
These statues of Aphrodite in the Vatican and
most others produced in the latter portion of the
classical period of Greek art are entirely nude, but
with the exception of the very latest ones we must
grant that they are endowed with divine dignity.
An improper feature enters only when nudity be-
trays either an intentional display, with a pretense
of prudery, or an obvious purpose to excite sensual-
ity. Originally these features are foreign to the
Greek goddess and develop only with the decay
of Hellenic civilization. They appear obtrusively
in the so-called Venus of Medici, and worse still in
the so-called Venus Kalypygos, in this way justi-
fying to some extent the harsh opinion of Christian
pietists who have vitiated our notion of Greek dei-
ties down to the present day. From the standpoint
here taken I may be permitted to omit entirely any
reproduction of pictures of this latest phase of the
artistic conception of Venus.
Among the portrayals ot Venus we deem two
recent discoveries worthy of reproduction on ac-
count of their sweetness and gracefulness. One is
the Venus of Pandemia and the other a bust found
in a wrecked ship by sponge divers at the bottom of
the sea off the African coast in the Mediterranean.
The former was found in a shipwreck near the coast
APHRODITE IN ART.
167
of Pandemia in the year 1884, together with coins
of the time of Lysimachos. It is made of Parian
marble and shows the goddess standing near a small
pillar over which her garment is hung. She is rep-
.THE VENUS OF PANDERMA.
Front view.
resented at the moment when her hands are tying a
long ribbon around her head to hold up her curly
hair which falls back behind the ears. Furtwangler
and Salomon Reinach have devoted much attention
168
THE VENUS OF MILO.
to the Statue, the latter in his Repertoire de la sfa-
tuaire grecque et romainej and both praise highly the
beauty of the goddess.
THE VENUS OF PANDERMA.
Rear view.
The head of the goddess Venus now preserved in
the museum at Bardos near Tunis must have lain
hidden for over two thousand years. It had prob-
APHRODITE IN ART.
169
THE VENUS HEAD IN THE MUSEUM OF BARDOS.
170 THE VENUS OF MILO.
ably been ordered by lovers of art living in Africa
and never reached its place of destination. The
shells which cover part of the bust have happily
not attacked the features of the goddess and so the
beauty of the face is left unmarred.
\
I
CLASSICAL HYMNS.
THE worship of Aphrodite in the days of clas-
sical paganism is best characterized by two
hymns attributed to Homer, but it must be under-,
stood that this whole class of poetry constitutes
Homeric apocrypha of a comparatively late date.
We quote the original from the Teubner edition :
EI2 A4>P0AITHN.
KvTTpoycK^ Kv^tpeuzv dcicro/xat, rJTC ^poTol(n
fM€L\L)(^a Swpa StStocrtv, c<^' IfitpTt^ 8c Trpocroiirw
aUl /tecSiaei Koi i<f> lixepTov <f>€p€L avOo<;-
Xatpc, Oea, 2a\a/xtvos i'vKTLfiivqs /xcScovcra
Kttt 7rd(rrjs KvTrpov 805 8' Ifxepoecrcrav aoid-qv.
avrap cyw Kat (re to kol aWr)^ p.vrj(TOfx docS^s-
A versified translation of our own reads thus :
'*My verse shall praise thee, goddess fair and mighty,
Great Queen of Cyprus, glorious Aphrodite
Who unto mortals love's sweet gift bestowest
And in the charm of richest beauty glowest.
Thou boldest in thy hand the magic flower
Whose spell subjects us to thy gentle power.
Hail, gracious lady, soother of all woes,
Who conquerest by pleasing smiles thy foes.
HEAD OF THE CNIDIAN VENUS.
Front view.
CLASSICAL HYMNS. 173
As we thy beauty worship and admire
Inspire my song with thy celestial fire.
So shall my muse forever honor thee
And her whom thou commendest unto me.
>>
Here is another hymn, not less charming :
EIS A^POAITHN.
AlSoLtjv )(pvaro(rT€<f)avov KaXrjv AcfypoSCrriv
acrojxai, rj Trdcrfi KvTrpov Kp-qSefxva \€\oy^€v
€lva\Lrj<i, ode fxiv Z€<f)vpov fX€vo<; vypov d€VTO<i
T]V€LK€v Kara KVfia Tro\vcl>\oia(ioLO 6a\d(rcrr}<;
d<f>p(^ €VL fiaXaKw' Tr)v Bk )(^pv(Tdp.7rvK€<s Clpai
Sc^avr' do"7racrt'(os, irepl 8 dp-ISpora iLfxara tcraav
Kparl 8 €7r dOavdrw (TTe(f>dvYjv €vtvktov iOrjKav
Ka\r)v, )(pv(TeL7]V' iv 8€ rprjTOLcn Xo(Bo1<tiv
dvOcfx 6p€i)(d\K0v )(^pv(tol6 T€ TifJirjevTOi'
^^t-pij 8' dfx<f> aTraXr] Kal crTrjOecTLV dpyv<j>€OL(nv
Opp.0L(TL ^pvaioLCTLV €KO(T/XCOV, olfTL TTCp aVTol
'Qpai KO(T pL€.CcrOr]v ^pvadp.TrvKf.'i, ottttot toicv
C5 ^opov l/xepoevTa OeCjv kol Soj/xara Trarpo?-
avrdp CTreiSr] irdvTa irtpX xpoi Koa/xov iOrjKav,
fjyov €9 a"avaTOv<i' ol o rjaTraQovTO loovre^
^cp(7t' t' iSe^LOiovTO Koi rfp-qaavTO cKaoros
ctvat Kovpi^Liqv dXo\ov kol oIkuK dyeaOai,
cTSos Oavjxd^ovT€s LOcrT€(f)dvov l^vOepeirj^;.
Xatp eXiKofSX^ffiape, yAv/<v/x€iA.i;^€* Bos 8' iv dyCtvL
VLKYjV Ta)8e <f)€p€(T6aL, ifXTjv 8' evTvvov doLSrjv.
avrdp iyct) kol ae'io koi dWYj<s p.vq(Top. docBris •
Translated into English verse the hymn reads :
'The venerable Lady I adore,
Queen Aphrodite, owner of the shore
174 THE VENUS OF MILO.
Of seagirt Cyprus. Thither Zephyr's breeze
Had wafted her as babe with gentle ease.
While yet unborn, in briny foam lay she
Floating on billows of the surging sea,
Whence she came forth. The Seasons young and
fair
With gold-embroidered bridles guided her,
They took her to their arms and they caressed
The little maid and had her beauty dressed
In garments of Ambrosian fabric wrought.
And then a crown of golden weight they brought.
Three-handled, which above her head they placed.
Her soft white neck with carcanets was graced,
The strands of which her silver breast adorn
In such a way as by the Seasons worn
At dances in sylvestrian resort
Or in Olympus at their father's court.
They carried up the babe so fair and wee
To the immortals, who in ecstacy
Began at once to hug and fondle her
And kiss her hands. All vowed that thev would
wear
The sacred flower of this divine fair maid
At Hymen's feast in festival parade.
Yea, such great charm the Gods e'en never saw ;
They gazed and wondered and they stood in awe.
O goddess, dark-browed, sweet of voice,
In thee my song shall glory to rejoice!
On us poor mortals here on earth below
Life's palm and heaven's happiness bestow.
ANOTHER VIEW OF THE CNIDIAN VENUS.
176 THE VENUS OF MILO.
Praised be forever thy divinity,
And the fair sex which representeth thee."
The nature of Venus as the mother of the uni-
verse, the mistress of existence, and the representa-
tive of all that is charming and lovely endeared her
to the philosopher as well as to the poet, and so in
Rome at a later day even the freethinker among
classical poets, Titus Lucretius, dedicated to her his
philosophical book of poetry, De rerum natura, in
these often quoted words '} ^,
''Mother of Rome, delight of Gods and men,
Dear Venus that beneath the gliding stars
Makest to teem the many-voyaged main
And fruitful lands — for all of living things
Through thee alone are evermore conceived,
Throughthee are risen to visit the great sun —
Before thee, Goddess, and thy coming on.
Flee stormy wind and massy cloud away ;
For thee the dedal Earth bears gentle flowers;
For thee wide waters of the unvexed deep
Smile, and the hollows of the serene sky
Glow with diffused radiance for thee!
For soon as comes the springtime face of day,
And procreant gales blow from the West unbarred,
First fowls of air, smit to the heart by thee,
Foretoken thy approach, O thou Divine,
And leap the wild herds round the happy fields
Or swim the bounding torrents. Then amain,
1 From Dr. William Ellery Leonard's translation.
CLASSICAL HYMNS. 177
Seized with the spell, all creatures follow thee
Whithersoever thou walkest forth to lead ;
And thence through seas and mountains and swift
streams,
Through leafy homes of birds and greening plains,
Kindling the lure of love in e\ery breast,
Thou bringest the eternal generations forth,
Kind after kind. And since 'tis thou alone
Guidest the Cosmos, and without thee naught
Is risen to reach the holy shores of light.
Nor aught of joyful or of lovely born.
Thee do I crave co-partner in that verse
Which I presume on Nature to compose
For Memmius mine, whom thou hast willed to be
Peerless in every grace at every hour —
Wherefore, indeed, Divine one, give my words
Immortal charm. Lull to a timely rest
O'er sea and land the savage works of war,
For thou alone hast power with public peace
To aid mortality ; since he who rules
The savage works of battle, puissant Mars,
How often to thy bosom flings his strength,
O'ermastered by the eternal wound of love —
And there, with eyes and full throat backward
thrown.
Gazing, my Goddess, open-mouthed at thee,
Pastures on love his greedy sight, his breath
Hanging upon thy lips? Him thus reclined
Fill with thy holy body, round, above!
Pour from those lips soft syllables to win
178 THE VENUS OF MILO.
Peace for the Roman, glorious Lady, peace !
For in a season troublous to the state
Neither may I attend this task of mine
With thought untroubled, nor may mid such events
The illustrious scion of the Memmian house
Neglect the civic cause."
^ ^ ^
The temples of Aphrodite lie in ruins, and her
worship is abandoned ; but the ideal of womanhood
which she represented has remained to this day,
and will remain so long' as mankind will continue to
exist on earth. The artist of the statue of Milo
has left us an unsurpassed interpretation of this
ideal which even in its mutilated condition is noble
and beautiful. At the same time nature does not
cease to actualize the type in every living v/oman
that has been born into the world. Each one of
them with all her individual traits, her preferences
and even her feminine faults is a specimen of the
eternal ideal of womanhood — the divinitv of love,
of grace, of charm, of beauty, a source of inspira-
tion as well as of physical and intellectual creative-
ness.
The ancient paganism has passed away and will
never come back, but because its superstitions are
gone we need no longer scorn its gods. We can
recognize their grandeur, their nobility, their beauty,
yea their truth ; and if we contemplate the represen-
tation of their ideals in Greek art, we must own that
the Venus of Milo is not the least among them.
INDEX.
Adonis, Death of, 76.
^neas, 74.
-Eschylus, 74.
Agesander or Alexander of An-
tioch, 14, 17, 20, 21, 51.
Alcamenes, 154, 1 57-1 59-
Alcard, 44.
Alcuin Bible, 133-135.
Amazon, Etymology of, 63.
Anchises, 68; and Aphrodite, 74, 75
Antiochus Euergetes, 150.
Antiochus Soter, 17.
Aphrodite, and Ares, 155-157; as
a universal principle, 65, 7Z'<
Birth of, 62, 69; Cypris, 65;
Etymology of the name, 62, 64;
Euploia, 162; Pandemos, 67;
Sosandra, 154, 156; Urania, 67,
74; Worship of, 55, 68-75.
Apple, emblem of mother-goddess,
98; emblem of Venus, 25; held
in hand, 7, 9, 10, 12, 14, 25, 30,
33. 44. 45. 47; Melos means, i,
25; of empire, 39-40.
Archaic Venus, 154-155.
Ares, Aphrodite and, 155-157.
Artemis, 149.
Astarte, 69, 107; A later, 105; and
the Dove, 100; in Cyprus, 106,
no; Sargent's, 108, no; Wor-
ship of, 55.
Asurbanipal, 79, 80.
Athene, 69, 77, 79; Worshop of, 56.
Athens, 54, 56, 67.
Babylon, Trinity in, 98.
Bacchus, 14.
Bain, F. W., 128.
Bajot, 5M.
Bardos, 168, 169.
Battle on the beach, 43, 46-47, 49.
Bell, T., 31.
Bellona, 77.
Beltis, 73, MS, 151.
Benten, no, 113.
Bethel, 148-150.
Birth, of Aphrodite, 62, 69, 70;
of Syrian goddess, 71.
Boghaz-Koi, 103-105.
Bottonis, Antonio, 2, 45.
Bottonis, Yorgos, a Greek peasant.
2, 5, 9, ID, n, 13, 44.
Bottonis, Yorgos, Jr., 45.
Brassempouy, Venus of, 146.
Brest, Louis, 3. 46.
Buddha, Kwan-Yon as the, i\2,
115.
Caesar, 74, 75.
Capua, 55.
Carolsfeld, Schnorr von, 140- 141.
Carus, The Bride of Christ. 107:
Soul of Man, 126.
Castro in Melos, 2, 12, 45, 46.
Century Magazine, 2, 6.
Charm of statue, 26, 27.
"Chevrette," 3, 5.
Christian Trinity, 98-99.
Christianity, 56, 74, 144.
Chthonian Venus, 75, 83, 85.
Clarac, Count de, 13, 15, 50; Re-
port of, 48.
Cnidian Venus, 160-163, 172.
Cnidos, 72, 163.
180
THE VENUS OF MILO.
Condition of statue, 9-10, 24, 43,
45, 48, 49.
Conybeare, F. C, 56.
Conze, 21.
Corinth, Hierodules in, 74.
Coronet, 24.
Creation, Greek legend of, 62;
Maori legend of, 63)1.
Creuzer, 36.
Crouching \'enus, 163, 164, 166.
Cyprian Aphrodite, 154.
Cyprus, -j^, 107; Astarte in, 106,
no.
Date of statue, 20, 52.
David, 15.
Debay, Auguste, 15; Drawing of,
16, 21.
Del Mar, Alexander, 37, 39-40.
Del Mar, Francisca Paloma, 37, 38.
Demeter, 69.
Descent into Hades, 76, 83-95.
Description of statue, 6-8, 22-25,
41, 42, 45, 51, 52.
Diana of Ephesus, 149, 152-153.
Dionaea, dj.
Dione, 65.
Discovery of statue, 2, 5-6, 44.
Dodona, 67.
Dore, Gustave, 139, 141,
Dove, 98, 102; Astarte and the,
100; Venus sending out the, 36,
Zl-
Egypt, Trinity in, 98.
Eleusinian mysteries, 83.
Ephesus, Diana of, 149, 152-153.
Epithets of Aphrodite, 65, 67.
Eros, 2y, 28, 65, TTn, 83; in the
underworld, 84; Statue of, 28.
"Estafette," 3, 4, 43, 46, 47.
Eve, Adam and, in art, 132-141;
Apple of, 127, 138; Creation of,
125, 127, 135, 138, 140.
Fanaticism, 2T, 60.
Farnell, Lewis Richard, 83.
Ferry. Jules, 52; Report of, 45-47.
I'iguhis. Xigidius, 71.
Fish, 103; Isis with the, 102;
Kwan-Yon with the, iio-iii; of
the Euphrates, 71; on Friday,
117.
Foam-born, 62, 69.
Fragments, 2, &, 10, 11, \2n, 13,
43, 47, 53-
Freer, Charles L., 114.
Freya, 117-120.
Furtwangler, 167; Restoration by,
"Galaxidion," 46, 48.
Gauttier, 5;!.
Gerhard, 154.
Ghiberti, 135-138.
Gilchrist, Edward, 86«.
Glyptothek, 165.
Greek, legend of creation, 62;
philology, 63; religion, 2-j.
Guerber, H. A., 117, 119.
Hades, Descent into, ^d, 83-95.
Halo, 39-40.
Hasse and Henke, 2)'^, 2,Z-
Hawk, Human-headed, 98.
Heine, Heinrich, 2T.
Helios, 40.
Hephaestos, 68.
Hera (Juno), 24; Worship of, 56.
Heracles, 14, 127; Etymology of,
63.
Hermae, 6, 7, 8, 13.
Hermes, 14; (psychopompos), 83.
Hesiod, 62.
Hesperides, Apple of the, 127.
Hierapolis, 102.
Hirt, 77.
History of the statue, 52-60.
Holy Ghost, 98.
Homer, 65.
Homeric hymns, 171- 176.
Hypatia, 60.
Idols, Beginning of, 150.
Iduna, Apples of, 127.
India, Trinity in, 98.
Inscription, on plinth, 15, 17; Vo-
tive, 8, 13-14, SO.
INDEX.
181
Isis, and Horus, 99; and the fish,
102, 103; Worship of, 55.
Istar, 71, 79, 80, 81, 107; and
Tammuz, 86; Carrying in pro-
cession the symbol of, 97; on
coin of Tarsus, 150; Worship
of, 55-
Istar's Descent to Hell, 85-95.
Jeremias, Dr. Alfred, 85.
Jesus, 84.
Jowett, 122-126.
Kalamis, 154, 156.
Kalypygos, \'enus, 166.
Kanachus, 154.
K'ang Hi, 116.
Kirchhoff, 17.
Kronos, 62.
Kwan-Yon, as the Buddha, 112,
115; by Li Lung-mien, 114;
Poem on, 112; with the fish,
I lO-I I I.
Lady, 69, 73, "8, 96, i45-
Lakshmi, 147.
Lang, Andrew, 63)!.
Lange, M., 49.
Lenormant, Charles, 11, 50.
Lenormant, F., 99, loi.
Leonard, William Ellerj', 176)1.
Life, Secret of, 143. ,
"Lionne," 4.
Louvre, 4, 10, 12, 25, 43, 48, 49.
53, 158; Authorities of the, 14,
17, 42, 50.
Love, Goddess of, 22, 39, 64, 74,
75, 76, 83, 1 17-120, 144, 178;
Goddess of sexual, 67.
Lucian, 103.
Lucretius, Titys, 176.
Ludovisi relief, 70-73.
Lung-mien, Li, 114.
Lysimachos, 167.
Lysippos, 52.
Magna Dea, 96ff.
r^Ian, Origin of, 122; Primitive,
142.
Maori legend of creation, 63 «:
Marcellus, Viscount, 3, 9, 14, 39,
43, 53'y Report of, 11-13.
^Farduk, 105.
Mary, Virgin, 64, 69, 71, no, 115,
120; Worship of, 37, 56.
Matriarchy, 96, 97.
Matterer, Lieutenartt, 44, 47.
Max, Gabriel, 141-143.
Measurements of statue, 7-8.
Medici, Venus of, 166.
^Melos, I, 2, 45, 46, 47; Inhabi-
tants of, 39, 53; Name of, 1,7;
Site of, 6.
Michelangelo, 138, 140.
Mirror, Venus with, 30, 31.
Montaiglon, M. A., 5«.
^Torusi, Nikolai, 3, 4.
Mother-goddess, The, 22, 68, 77,
96fif, 117, 120, 144.
Murillo. 109, no.
^Mutilation of statue, 7, 24, 27, 40,
42-43, 49, 53.
National Museum, 157, 158.
Navigation, Goddess of, 107.
Nebo, 81.
Nudity in art, 166; of statue, 22,
24, 41.
Ohnefalsch-Richter, 106.
Oiconomos, 3.
Open Court, no.
Oriental influence, 70-71, 96.
Original, Statue an, 20-21.
Orvieto, 135, 136.
Overbeck, 20.
Paganism, 55, 135, 178; End of,
60, 68, 73.
Panderma, Venus of, 166-168.
Paphos, 73.
Paul, St., 84.
Pausanias, 54, 76, i54n.
Pedestal, 14, 17, 20.
Penitential psalm, 78.
Pergamum, 21, 52.
182
THE VENUS OF MILO.
Persephone, 76; Myth of, 83.
Phidias, 52, 54, 72^ 154, 162.
Philology of Greeks, 63.
Pinches, Theodore G., 78.
Pindar, 74.
Plato, 62, 67, 121, 124, i28«.
Pluto, 83.
Polytheism, 68.
Pomegranate, 83, 98, 127; emblem
of Venus, 76; held in hand, 158.
Pompeian Venus, 154-155.
Praxiteles, 52, 160-163.
Preller, 76M, 154.
Prometheus, Etymology of, 63.
Purchase of statue, 3-4, 9.
Queen of heaven, 64, 69, 74, 96,
116.
Rabbit, 103.
Record-Herald, 44, 50.
Reinach, Salomon, 167.
Restorations, 27-41.
Riviere, Marquis de, 4, 9.
Robert, Commander, 46.
Roscher, 63/1, -in, 153, 154". i55".
156, 162.
Sailors, French, 4, 10, 49; Turk-
ish, 46.
Saloman, Geskel, 20; Restorations
by, 34, 35-
Sargent's Astarte, 108, no.
Schliemann, 107.
Scopas, 52.
Sculptor of the statue, 13, 21, 51,
52. 53-
Selene, 40.
Semiramis, loi.
Shield and pencil, Venus with, 29,
31-
Sistine Madonna, 25.
Socrates, 121.
Sophia, 99; The gnostic, 98.
Soul, Egyptian, 98, 99.
Springer, Anton, 134.
Star of the sea, 120.
Steinthal, H., 63n.
Swastika, 107.
Syrian goddess, 96, 103; Birth of,
71.
Tacitus, 73.
Talbot, H. Fox, 79, 81.
Tammuz, 86.
Taylor, 63)1.
Theodosius, 39.
Thiers, 45, 47-
T'ien Hou, 116.
Titian, 66, 67.
Tiumman, 79, 80; Head of, 82.
Tomb of Aphrodite, 76.
Toulon, 5.
Tralles, Head of, 19, 20, 21.
Tree of life, 127.
Trinities, 98.
Turkish brig, 43, 46, 48.
Unguent jar, Venus with the, 165,
166.
Uranus and Gaia, 62.
Urville, Dumont d', 3, 13, 14. 42-
43, 44, 47; Report of, 5-9.
Valentin, Veit, 25; Restoration by.
37. 41-
Vatican, 152, 160-163, 164, 165.
\>nice, Doves of, 103.
Venus Erycina, jyn; Genetrix, 69.
75, 159; . Kalypygos, 166; of
Milo; full figure, 16, 23; of
Milo; head, fr., 18, 57, 591 o^
Milo: restored, 29, 30, 31, 32,
33, 34. 35. 38; on the swan, 55.
56; Proserpina, 154; Urania, 74;
Victrix, 75, 77, 78, 79', Victrix,
Statue called, 45, 47, 48; Vul-
garis, 74-
Mctory, Venus of Milo as, 31.
War, Goddess of, 77-82.
Wings, 99-
Woermann, io2».
Woman, Origin of, 127-132.
Zealotry, Outbursts of, 58.
Zeus, 65.
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